CVE-2006-3971 in Ajax Chat
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in visitor/livesupport/chat.php in Scott Weedon Ajax Chat, possibly 0.1, allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the userid parameter.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/07/2017
The CVE-2006-3971 vulnerability represents a classic cross-site scripting flaw within the Scott Weedon Ajax Chat application, specifically in the visitor/livesupport/chat.php component. This security weakness arises from inadequate input validation and output sanitization mechanisms that fail to properly handle user-supplied data. The vulnerability manifests when the application processes the userid parameter without sufficient sanitization, creating an opening for malicious actors to inject arbitrary web scripts or HTML content. The affected version range including 0.1 indicates this was likely a relatively early iteration of the chat application where security considerations were not fully implemented. This type of vulnerability falls under the CWE-79 category of Cross-Site Scripting, which is one of the most prevalent and dangerous web application security flaws documented in the Common Weakness Enumeration catalog.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft or defacement, as it enables attackers to execute malicious code within the context of legitimate user sessions. When a victim visits a page containing the malicious script, the injected code executes in their browser, potentially stealing session cookies, redirecting users to phishing sites, or performing unauthorized actions on behalf of the victim. The attack vector requires minimal sophistication since it leverages the existing trust relationship between the user and the vulnerable application. Attackers can craft malicious URLs containing script payloads in the userid parameter that, when clicked by an unsuspecting user, will execute the malicious code. This vulnerability directly maps to ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for credential access through spearphishing attachments and T1531 for manipulation of web content, as it enables attackers to compromise user sessions and manipulate the application's behavior.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability demonstrates a fundamental flaw in input handling where the application fails to implement proper data sanitization or encoding before incorporating user-provided values into dynamic web content. The userid parameter serves as the attack surface where malicious input can be injected without proper validation or filtering. This weakness indicates that the application's security controls are insufficiently robust, lacking proper context-aware encoding mechanisms that would prevent script execution when user data is rendered in web pages. Organizations deploying such vulnerable applications face significant risks including potential data breaches, session hijacking, and reputational damage. The vulnerability's persistence across multiple versions suggests that security testing and code review processes were inadequate during the application's development lifecycle. Modern secure coding practices would mandate input validation, output encoding, and context-specific sanitization to prevent such vulnerabilities from manifesting in production environments. The lack of proper security controls in this early version of the Ajax Chat application highlights the critical importance of implementing comprehensive security measures from the initial development phases rather than addressing issues retroactively.