CVE-2016-4884 in BaserCMS
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in baserCMS plugin Blog version 3.0.10 and earlier allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/25/2020
The CVE-2016-4884 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw discovered in the baserCMS plugin Blog version 3.0.10 and earlier implementations. This vulnerability resides within the web application's authentication mechanism and specifically targets administrator accounts, making it particularly dangerous for content management systems that rely heavily on privileged user access. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to exploit the lack of proper request validation controls, enabling them to perform unauthorized administrative actions on behalf of legitimate users without their knowledge or consent.
The technical flaw stems from insufficient validation of cross-site requests within the baserCMS plugin architecture, where the application fails to properly verify the origin and authenticity of incoming requests. This weakness creates a pathway for attackers to craft malicious requests that appear to originate from legitimate administrative sessions. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and leverages the trust relationship between the web application and its authenticated users, specifically targeting the session management and request validation components. According to CWE classification, this vulnerability maps to CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in web applications. The flaw demonstrates a fundamental failure in implementing proper anti-CSRF token mechanisms and origin validation checks that should be inherent to secure web application design practices.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft or modification, as it provides attackers with the ability to completely compromise administrative accounts within the baserCMS environment. Successful exploitation could enable attackers to modify website content, delete critical data, install malicious software, or create new administrative user accounts. The remote nature of the attack means that threat actors do not require physical access to the system or any special privileges to exploit this weakness, making it particularly attractive to cybercriminals. This vulnerability directly impacts the integrity and availability of web applications that depend on baserCMS for content management, potentially leading to complete system compromise and data breaches. The attack vector operates through web browsers and leverages the trust relationship that exists between authenticated users and the web application, which aligns with ATT&CK technique T1531 for privilege escalation and T1071.1 for application layer protocols.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2016-4884 should prioritize immediate patching of the affected baserCMS plugin versions to the latest available releases that contain proper CSRF protection mechanisms. Organizations should implement comprehensive CSRF token validation across all administrative functions and ensure that all requests are properly authenticated and originate from legitimate sources. The implementation of proper anti-CSRF measures including unique tokens for each user session, proper referer header validation, and SameSite cookie attributes should be enforced. Additionally, network segmentation and monitoring solutions should be deployed to detect anomalous administrative activities that might indicate exploitation attempts. Security teams should conduct thorough vulnerability assessments of all baserCMS installations and ensure that proper access controls are implemented to limit the scope of potential damage from any successful exploitation attempts. Regular security updates and patch management processes should be established to prevent similar vulnerabilities from occurring in the future, aligning with industry best practices for web application security and compliance with standards such as OWASP Top Ten and NIST cybersecurity frameworks.