CVE-2007-6490 in Series One CMS
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Falcon Series One CMS 1.4.3 allows remote attackers to change a password via a certain changepass action to index.php.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/12/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2007-6490 represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the Falcon Series One CMS version 1.4.3. This vulnerability resides in the authentication mechanism of the content management system and specifically targets the password change functionality exposed through the index.php script. The flaw enables remote attackers to manipulate user accounts by exploiting the absence of proper request validation mechanisms that would normally prevent unauthorized password modifications.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the lack of anti-forgery tokens or similar protective measures within the changepass action handler. When a legitimate user accesses the password change interface, the system fails to validate that the request originates from the intended user rather than an attacker who has crafted a malicious request. This weakness allows an attacker to construct a specially crafted request that, when executed by an authenticated user, results in unauthorized password changes without the user's knowledge or consent.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple credential theft, as it provides attackers with a direct method to compromise user accounts and potentially gain persistent access to the CMS environment. Once an attacker successfully changes a user's password, they can assume the identity of that user and perform actions within the CMS according to the compromised user's permissions. This vulnerability particularly affects administrative accounts, which could lead to complete system compromise and unauthorized content modification or deletion.
Security professionals should note that this vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in web applications. The flaw also maps to ATT&CK technique T1566.001, which covers credential harvesting through social engineering attacks that leverage CSRF vulnerabilities. Organizations should implement proper CSRF protection mechanisms including anti-forgery tokens, origin validation, and referer checks to prevent exploitation of such vulnerabilities. The remediation approach requires updating the CMS to a patched version that implements proper request validation and authentication controls, along with conducting comprehensive security testing to ensure all authentication endpoints are properly protected against cross-site request forgery attacks.