CVE-2009-4236 in EC-CUBE Ver2
Summary
by MITRE
The process function in data/class/pages/admin/customer/LC_Page_Admin_Customer_SearchCustomer.php in EC-CUBE Ver2 2.4.0 RC1 through 2.4.1, and Community Edition r18068 through r18428, allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information (customer data) via unknown vectors related to sessions.
VulDB is the best source for vulnerability data and more expert information about this specific topic.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/15/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2009-4236 represents a critical information disclosure flaw within the EC-CUBE e-commerce platform version 2.4.0 RC1 through 2.4.1 and Community Edition revisions r18068 through r18428. This issue resides in the process function of the LC_Page_Admin_Customer_SearchCustomer.php file, which handles customer search functionality within the administrative interface. The vulnerability stems from improper session management and inadequate access controls that allow unauthorized remote attackers to extract sensitive customer data through unspecified attack vectors. The flaw demonstrates a fundamental breakdown in the application's security architecture, particularly concerning how it handles user authentication and session state management during administrative operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the process function failing to properly validate session authenticity and authorization levels when processing customer search requests. Attackers can exploit this weakness to bypass normal access controls that should restrict customer data access to authorized administrative users only. The session handling mechanism appears to either fail to properly verify user credentials or does not adequately enforce role-based access controls, creating an avenue for information leakage. This type of vulnerability aligns with CWE-284, which addresses improper access control, and represents a classic case of insufficient privilege checking within web applications. The attack vector leverages the application's trust in session state without proper validation of the user's authorization level, allowing for unauthorized data retrieval.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe as it enables remote attackers to obtain sensitive customer information including personal data, contact details, and potentially financial information. This exposure creates significant risks for both the e-commerce platform operators and their customers, potentially leading to identity theft, fraud, and regulatory compliance violations. The vulnerability affects a substantial portion of EC-CUBE installations during the specified version range, making it a widespread concern for organizations using this platform. The remote nature of the attack means that threat actors can exploit this flaw from anywhere on the internet without requiring physical access or local network presence, amplifying the potential impact. Organizations may face legal consequences under data protection regulations such as GDPR or PCI DSS due to unauthorized data exposure, and could suffer reputational damage from customer trust erosion.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should focus on implementing proper session validation and access control mechanisms within the application. The recommended approach includes strengthening the process function to verify administrative user privileges before processing customer search requests, implementing robust session management with proper timeout mechanisms, and ensuring that all administrative functions enforce strict authorization checks. Organizations should also consider implementing additional security measures such as input validation, output encoding, and comprehensive logging of administrative activities. The fix should address the root cause by ensuring that session tokens are properly validated against authenticated user contexts and that role-based access controls are enforced at every administrative interface function. Security monitoring should be enhanced to detect unusual access patterns and unauthorized attempts to access customer data, with regular security audits to identify similar vulnerabilities in other parts of the application codebase. This vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of proper access control implementation and session management in web applications, aligning with ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts and T1566 for credential harvesting through information discovery activities.