CVE-2011-5223 in Cacti
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in logout.php in Cacti before 0.8.7i allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/29/2017
The CVE-2011-5223 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw in the Cacti network monitoring system prior to version 0.8.7i. This vulnerability resides within the logout.php script and enables remote attackers to exploit authentication sessions of unspecified victims through unspecified attack vectors. The flaw fundamentally undermines the security model of the application by allowing unauthorized users to perform actions on behalf of authenticated users without their knowledge or consent. Such vulnerabilities are particularly dangerous in network monitoring environments where administrative privileges are commonly used and the consequences of unauthorized access can be severe.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF mechanisms within the logout.php script. In modern web applications, CSRF protection typically involves the implementation of unique tokens that are generated for each user session and validated upon form submission or request processing. The vulnerability in Cacti's logout functionality suggests that the application failed to implement these essential protections, allowing attackers to craft malicious requests that could be executed by authenticated users. This weakness aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities in web applications. The attack vectors remain unspecified in the CVE description, indicating that the vulnerability may manifest through multiple exploitation methods including but not limited to crafted email links, malicious websites, or compromised third-party resources that could trigger the logout functionality.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple session hijacking, as it could potentially allow attackers to perform administrative actions within the Cacti environment. Network monitoring systems like Cacti often contain sensitive information about network infrastructure, performance metrics, and system configurations that could be exploited for further attacks. An attacker who successfully exploits this CSRF vulnerability could potentially redirect users to malicious logout requests, thereby gaining unauthorized access to network monitoring data, modifying configurations, or even executing arbitrary commands if the application lacks proper input validation. The implications are particularly severe given that Cacti is commonly used in enterprise environments where network administrators rely on the system for critical infrastructure monitoring and management.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate patching of affected Cacti installations to version 0.8.7i or later, which would include the implementation of proper CSRF protection mechanisms. Organizations should also implement additional defensive measures such as ensuring that all user sessions are properly invalidated upon logout, implementing proper token validation for all state-changing operations, and configuring web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious request patterns. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of implementing comprehensive security controls throughout the application lifecycle, particularly in authentication and session management components. This flaw also aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566, which covers social engineering tactics including phishing attacks that leverage CSRF vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to systems. Security teams should conduct thorough vulnerability assessments of all network monitoring tools and ensure that proper input validation, output encoding, and session management practices are implemented across all application components to prevent similar vulnerabilities from occurring in the future.