CVE-2012-1083 in Terminal
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Terminal PHP Shell (terminal) extension 0.3.2 and earlier for TYPO3 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/14/2019
The CVE-2012-1083 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the Terminal PHP Shell extension version 0.3.2 and earlier for the TYPO3 content management system. This vulnerability exposes the TYPO3 platform to unauthorized manipulation by malicious actors who can exploit the lack of proper CSRF protection mechanisms. The vulnerability specifically affects the terminal extension, which provides command-line interface functionality within the TYPO3 administration environment, making it a particularly dangerous vector for attackers seeking to compromise administrative sessions.
The technical flaw stems from the absence of anti-CSRF tokens or validation mechanisms within the Terminal PHP Shell extension's request processing. When users interact with the terminal functionality, the extension fails to verify the authenticity of requests originating from legitimate administrative sessions. This omission creates a pathway for attackers to craft malicious requests that appear to come from authenticated users, allowing them to execute arbitrary commands or manipulate system resources without proper authorization. The vulnerability operates through unspecified attack vectors that likely involve session manipulation or request forgery techniques targeting the TYPO3 administrative interface.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe for organizations using affected TYPO3 versions, as it enables remote attackers to hijack administrative sessions and potentially gain full control over the CMS environment. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability to execute unauthorized commands, modify content, access sensitive data, or even establish persistent backdoors within the system. The unspecified nature of the attack vectors suggests that multiple exploitation techniques may be possible, increasing the overall threat surface and making defensive measures more challenging to implement. This vulnerability directly undermines the security model of TYPO3's administrative interface, potentially leading to complete system compromise and data breaches.
Organizations should immediately upgrade to patched versions of the Terminal PHP Shell extension or implement compensating controls such as additional authentication layers, network segmentation, and monitoring of administrative activities. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications, and represents a clear violation of the principle of least privilege in web application security. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving credential access and privilege escalation, as attackers can leverage the compromised administrative session to expand their access within the target environment. Security teams should also consider implementing web application firewalls and regular security audits to detect and prevent exploitation attempts.