CVE-2008-5672 in PHParanoid
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in PHParanoid before 0.4 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for requests that use (1) admin.php or (2) private messages.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/22/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2008-5672 represents a critical cross-site request forgery weakness in the PHParanoid web application framework prior to version 0.4. This type of vulnerability falls under the CWE-352 category, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks where an attacker can induce users to perform actions they did not intend to execute. The flaw enables remote attackers to hijack user authentication sessions and execute unauthorized operations within the application context.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF mechanisms in the framework's administrative and private messaging components. When users access the admin.php endpoint or interact with private messaging functionality, the application fails to validate the origin of requests or implement token-based verification mechanisms that would prevent unauthorized requests from being processed. This absence of request validation allows attackers to craft malicious requests that appear to originate from authenticated users, effectively bypassing the authentication system.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe as it provides attackers with the ability to perform administrative functions and access private communications on behalf of legitimate users. Attackers could potentially modify user permissions, delete content, manipulate database entries through the admin.php interface, or read, send, or modify private messages without proper authorization. This compromise directly affects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the application's data and administrative functions.
The vulnerability aligns with several ATT&CK techniques including T1566.001 for initial access through malicious links and T1078 for valid accounts usage. The attack vector typically involves sending crafted links or embedding malicious code in web pages that, when clicked by authenticated users, automatically submit requests to the vulnerable endpoints. Security practitioners should implement proper CSRF token validation, ensure request origin verification, and enforce proper session management controls to prevent such attacks. The remediation involves upgrading to PHParanoid version 0.4 or later, which includes proper CSRF protection mechanisms, along with implementing additional defensive measures such as SameSite cookie attributes and implementing proper request validation checks throughout the application framework.