CVE-2015-5075 in X2CRM
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in X2Engine X2CRM before 5.2 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that create an administrative account via a crafted request to index.php/users/create.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/18/2025
The CVE-2015-5075 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within X2Engine X2CRM versions prior to 5.2, specifically targeting the administrative account creation functionality. This vulnerability exposes the application to unauthorized privilege escalation attacks where malicious actors can exploit the lack of proper CSRF protection mechanisms to create administrative accounts without legitimate authorization. The flaw manifests through a crafted request sent to the index.php/users/create endpoint, which serves as the primary attack vector for compromising administrator credentials and gaining elevated access to the customer relationship management system.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the absence of anti-CSRF tokens or validation mechanisms within the user account creation workflow. When administrators access the system, they typically maintain authenticated sessions that grant them elevated privileges including the ability to create new user accounts with administrative rights. However, the vulnerable X2CRM version fails to implement proper session validation or token-based authentication checks before processing account creation requests. This omission allows attackers to construct malicious requests that leverage the administrator's existing authenticated session to execute unauthorized account creation operations, effectively bypassing normal authentication controls and privilege boundaries.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to organizations using X2CRM, as it enables remote attackers to escalate privileges without requiring valid credentials or exploiting other authentication mechanisms. The impact extends beyond simple account creation, as newly created administrative accounts can be used to modify system configurations, access sensitive customer data, manipulate business processes, and potentially establish persistent backdoors within the application environment. The remote nature of the attack means that threat actors can exploit this vulnerability from anywhere on the internet without requiring physical access to the network or system infrastructure.
Security professionals should recognize this vulnerability as a classic example of improper input validation and session management, aligning with CWE-352 which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery weaknesses in web applications. The attack pattern corresponds to techniques documented in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the privilege escalation and credential access domains, where adversaries leverage application flaws to gain elevated system privileges. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including the deployment of anti-CSRF tokens, session validation mechanisms, and proper input sanitization for all administrative functions. The recommended remediation involves upgrading to X2CRM version 5.2 or later, which includes proper CSRF protection measures, along with implementing additional security controls such as web application firewalls and regular security assessments to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in other application components.