CVE-2013-1785 in Responsive
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the 3 slide gallery in the Premium Responsive theme before 7.x-1.6 for Drupal allows remote authenticated users with the administer themes permission to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/25/2019
The CVE-2013-1785 vulnerability represents a cross-site scripting flaw within the 3 slide gallery component of the Premium Responsive theme for Drupal platforms. This vulnerability specifically affects versions prior to 7.x-1.6 and poses a significant security risk to web applications relying on Drupal's content management capabilities. The flaw enables malicious actors to execute arbitrary web scripts or HTML code within the context of affected user sessions, potentially leading to unauthorized access, data theft, or further compromise of the web application environment.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and output sanitization within the theme's gallery implementation. Attackers with the specific permission level of "administer themes" can exploit this weakness to inject malicious payloads through unspecified vectors within the gallery functionality. This permission level typically grants users the ability to modify theme settings and configurations, making the attack surface particularly concerning as it requires only a compromised administrative account rather than full system access. The vulnerability falls under the CWE-79 category of Cross-Site Scripting, which is classified as a critical security weakness in web applications.
The operational impact of CVE-2013-1785 extends beyond simple script injection, as it can enable attackers to perform session hijacking, steal sensitive information, or redirect users to malicious websites. When an authenticated administrator accesses a page containing the vulnerable gallery, the injected script executes in their browser context, potentially allowing for complete compromise of their session and access to privileged administrative functions. This vulnerability also aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059.007 for Command and Scripting Interpreter, as it allows for script execution within the victim's browser environment, and T1566 for Phishing, as it can be used to craft convincing malicious web pages that appear legitimate.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately upgrade to Drupal theme version 7.x-1.6 or later, which contains the necessary patches to address the XSS vulnerability. Additionally, administrators should implement proper input validation and output encoding mechanisms throughout their web applications, particularly for user-supplied content. Security monitoring should include detection of suspicious theme modifications and unauthorized access attempts to administrative interfaces. The remediation process should also involve reviewing and hardening the permissions model to ensure that only trusted users possess the "administer themes" capability, following the principle of least privilege. Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments should be conducted to identify similar weaknesses in other components of the Drupal installation, as this vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper sanitization in web application development practices.