CVE-2014-8953 in Who's Who
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Php Scriptlerim Who s Who script allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators or requests that (1) add an admin account via a request to filepath/yonetim/plugin/adminsave.php or have unspecified impact via a request to (2) ayarsave.php, (3) uyesave.php, (4) slaytadd.php, or (5) slaytsave.php.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/02/2025
The CVE-2014-8953 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw affecting the Php Scriptlerim Who s Who script, a web application commonly used for managing contact directories and user information. This vulnerability resides within the administrative backend of the application and exposes multiple attack vectors that could allow remote threat actors to manipulate the system without proper authentication. The flaw specifically targets the administrative functions of the script, making it particularly dangerous as it could enable attackers to gain elevated privileges and fully compromise the application's administrative capabilities. The vulnerability affects versions of the script that do not properly implement anti-CSRF mechanisms, leaving the application exposed to malicious request manipulation attacks.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper validation mechanisms for administrative requests within the targeted PHP scripts. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting malicious requests that leverage the victim's authenticated session to perform unauthorized administrative actions. The vulnerability manifests across five distinct endpoints including adminsave.php, ayarsave.php, uyesave.php, slaytadd.php, and slaytsave.php, each representing different administrative functions within the application. These endpoints lack proper anti-CSRF token validation, session management checks, or request origin verification that would normally prevent unauthorized modifications to system configurations. The flaw allows attackers to add new administrative accounts, modify system settings, and potentially gain complete control over the application's administrative interface, making it a severe threat to application security.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation, as it could enable attackers to completely compromise the administrative functionality of the Who s Who script. An attacker who successfully exploits any of the five vulnerable endpoints could potentially create new administrator accounts with full privileges, modify existing user accounts, alter system configurations, or manipulate the application's content management features. The vulnerability's remote nature means that attackers do not require physical access to the system or local network presence to exploit it, making it particularly dangerous in web-facing environments. This could result in complete application compromise, data theft, service disruption, or the installation of backdoors for persistent access. Organizations using the affected script could face significant security breaches, regulatory compliance violations, and potential legal consequences due to unauthorized access to administrative functions.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2014-8953 should prioritize immediate implementation of proper anti-CSRF protection mechanisms across all administrative endpoints. The most effective approach involves implementing unique anti-CSRF tokens for each administrative request, ensuring these tokens are validated upon submission and are tied to the user's current session. Organizations should also implement proper request origin verification, enforce strict session management practices, and consider implementing additional authentication layers for administrative functions. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving privilege escalation and credential access through web application exploitation. Regular security audits, input validation improvements, and comprehensive patch management processes should be implemented to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in the future. The affected application should be updated to a patched version that includes proper CSRF protection mechanisms, and administrators should conduct thorough security assessments to ensure no unauthorized changes have been made to the system.