CVE-2016-1172 in Recruit Plugin
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Recruit plugin before 0.9.3 for baserCMS allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/04/2019
The CVE-2016-1172 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the Recruit plugin for baserCMS versions prior to 093. This vulnerability exposes administrative sessions to unauthorized hijacking by remote attackers who can manipulate legitimate user requests to perform unauthorized actions. The flaw specifically targets the authentication mechanisms of the baserCMS platform, which is a popular open-source content management system widely used in Japan and other regions. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple data theft as it enables attackers to assume administrative privileges and potentially compromise entire websites or web applications. The Recruit plugin serves recruitment functionalities within baserCMS, making it a common target for attackers seeking to exploit administrative access to manipulate job listings, user data, or system configurations. This CSRF vulnerability operates by tricking authenticated administrators into executing malicious actions through crafted requests that appear legitimate to the web application. Attackers can leverage this weakness by embedding malicious links or forms within compromised websites or through social engineering techniques to deceive administrators into performing unauthorized operations. The vulnerability's exploitation requires minimal privileges from the attacker side, as they only need to convince an authenticated administrator to click on a malicious link or visit a compromised page. The attack vector typically involves sending a specially crafted HTTP request that leverages the administrator's existing session cookies without requiring knowledge of the administrator's credentials. The flaw demonstrates a fundamental failure in the plugin's implementation of anti-CSRF protection mechanisms, which should validate the origin of requests and ensure that actions are intentionally initiated by the legitimate user. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery, and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1078.004 for valid accounts, as the attack exploits legitimate administrative sessions. The issue affects organizations using baserCMS with the vulnerable Recruit plugin, potentially exposing sensitive recruitment data, user information, and administrative controls to unauthorized access. The vulnerability's persistence in the system allows attackers to maintain access and perform operations such as adding new users, modifying content, or altering system configurations that could severely impact business operations and data integrity. Organizations relying on this CMS platform needed immediate remediation to prevent exploitation, as the vulnerability could lead to complete system compromise. The patch for this vulnerability required implementing proper CSRF token validation mechanisms within the Recruit plugin's administrative interfaces, ensuring that all state-changing requests include and validate unique tokens that cannot be forged by attackers. Security researchers recommended that administrators immediately upgrade to baserCMS version 0.9.3 or later to address this vulnerability, as the update included proper CSRF protection measures that prevent unauthorized requests from being processed by the system. The incident highlighted the importance of implementing robust session management and request validation in web applications, particularly those handling administrative functions and sensitive data. Organizations should implement comprehensive security testing procedures, including penetration testing and code reviews, to identify similar vulnerabilities in their web applications. The vulnerability also underscores the need for regular security updates and patch management processes, as unpatched systems remain susceptible to exploitation by threat actors who actively seek out such flaws in widely used open-source platforms.