CVE-2012-2128 in DokuWiki
Summary
by MITRE
** DISPUTED ** Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in doku.php in DokuWiki 2012-01-25 Angua allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that add arbitrary users. NOTE: this issue has been disputed by the vendor, who states that it is resultant from CVE-2012-2129: "the exploit code simply uses the XSS hole to extract a valid CSRF token."
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/06/2024
The vulnerability described in CVE-2012-2128 represents a disputed cross-site request forgery issue within DokuWiki's doku.php component, specifically affecting the 2012-01-25 Angua release. This vulnerability operates under the premise that remote attackers could potentially hijack administrator authentication sessions to execute unauthorized user addition requests. The nature of CSRF attacks fundamentally relies on the ability of an attacker to trick authenticated users into executing unintended actions against a web application they are currently logged into. In this context, the vulnerability would allow malicious actors to leverage the administrator's authenticated session to add arbitrary user accounts, thereby potentially gaining persistent access to the system.
The technical flaw in question stems from inadequate protection mechanisms within the DokuWiki application's session management and request validation processes. When administrators perform administrative tasks through the web interface, the application should validate that requests originate from legitimate sources within the authenticated session. The vulnerability manifests when the application fails to properly verify the authenticity of requests, particularly those involving sensitive administrative operations such as user account creation. This weakness creates a pathway for attackers to craft malicious requests that appear legitimate to the web application, thereby bypassing standard authentication checks that should prevent unauthorized administrative actions.
From an operational perspective, the impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation to potentially compromise the entire web application infrastructure. An attacker who successfully exploits this CSRF vulnerability could establish persistent user accounts with administrative privileges, enabling them to modify content, access sensitive data, or even deploy malware through the web application interface. The severity of this threat is amplified when considering that the vulnerability specifically targets administrator accounts, which typically possess the highest level of system privileges and access controls. This could result in complete system compromise, data breaches, or unauthorized modifications to the web application's content management capabilities.
The vendor's disputed stance regarding CVE-2012-2128 indicates that they believe this issue is fundamentally a consequence of another vulnerability, specifically CVE-2012-2129, which involves cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. This relationship between vulnerabilities demonstrates how seemingly distinct security weaknesses can compound to create more severe attack vectors. According to the vendor's assessment, the exploitation of CVE-2012-2128 requires first exploiting the XSS vulnerability to extract a valid CSRF token, which then enables the CSRF attack. This interconnected nature of vulnerabilities aligns with the CWE classification system where multiple weaknesses can combine to create more significant security risks. The ATT&CK framework would categorize this as a privilege escalation technique through web application exploitation, potentially falling under the category of "Web Application Attack" with specific techniques involving session manipulation and credential compromise.
The disputed nature of this vulnerability highlights the complexity of security assessment and the importance of understanding how different weaknesses interact within software applications. Security researchers and vendors must carefully distinguish between vulnerabilities that are independent versus those that are dependent upon other existing weaknesses. In this case, the vendor's position suggests that the CSRF vulnerability is not a standalone issue but rather a secondary effect of an XSS vulnerability, which fundamentally changes the risk assessment and remediation approach. This relationship emphasizes the need for comprehensive security testing that considers how multiple vulnerabilities can interact to create attack chains that might not be immediately apparent from individual weakness analysis.
Organizations utilizing DokuWiki should prioritize addressing the underlying XSS vulnerability (CVE-2012-2129) as the primary remediation strategy, since this would effectively neutralize the conditions necessary for the disputed CSRF exploitation. The recommended mitigation approach involves implementing robust input validation, output encoding, and proper session management practices that would prevent both the XSS and CSRF vulnerabilities from being exploited. Security teams should also consider implementing additional layers of protection such as Content Security Policy headers, proper CSRF token generation and validation mechanisms, and regular security assessments to identify and remediate similar interrelated vulnerabilities. The incident underscores the importance of maintaining up-to-date software versions and following security best practices to prevent cascading vulnerabilities that can significantly increase the attack surface of web applications.