CVE-2018-16249 in Symphony
Summary
by MITRE
In Symphony before 3.3.0, there is XSS in the Title under Post. The ID "articleTitle" of this is stored in the "articleTitle" JSON field, and executes a payload when accessing the /member/test/points URI, allowing remote attacks. Any Web script or HTML can be inserted by an admin-authenticated user via a crafted web site name.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/07/2023
The vulnerability described in CVE-2018-16249 represents a cross-site scripting flaw within the Symphony content management system affecting versions prior to 3.3.0. This issue resides in the handling of article titles within the post creation functionality, specifically demonstrating how user-controllable input can be improperly sanitized and subsequently executed within the application's context. The vulnerability manifests when an administrator authenticated user crafts a malicious payload that gets stored in the articleTitle field of the JSON structure, which is then rendered without proper sanitization when accessing the /member/test/points URI endpoint. The flaw allows for arbitrary web script or HTML injection, creating a persistent XSS attack vector that can be exploited by malicious actors with administrative privileges.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability follows a classic XSS attack pattern where the malicious payload is stored server-side and then executed client-side when the affected page is accessed. The vulnerability specifically targets the articleTitle element with the id "articleTitle" which is stored within the "articleTitle" JSON field, indicating that the application uses JSON serialization for data persistence. When the /member/test/points URI is accessed, the stored payload executes in the browser context of any user who views the affected content, making this a particularly dangerous vulnerability as it can affect multiple users without requiring them to click on malicious links. The attack requires an authenticated administrator user to craft and submit the malicious input, which aligns with the principle of least privilege and demonstrates how internal threats can be leveraged to compromise the entire application.
This vulnerability impacts the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the Symphony application by potentially allowing attackers to execute arbitrary JavaScript code within the context of administrator sessions. The operational impact extends beyond simple data theft, as the XSS vulnerability could enable session hijacking, privilege escalation, or the redirection of users to malicious sites. The flaw represents a failure in input validation and output sanitization, which are fundamental security controls that should prevent such vulnerabilities from existing in the first place. From a compliance perspective, this vulnerability would likely violate several security standards including those outlined in the OWASP Top Ten, specifically addressing the risk of XSS flaws that can lead to complete application compromise. The vulnerability also maps to CWE-79 which describes Cross-site Scripting flaws, and could be categorized under ATT&CK technique T1059.007 for script execution through web applications.
The mitigation strategy for this vulnerability requires immediate patching of the Symphony application to version 3.3.0 or later where the XSS flaw has been addressed through proper input sanitization and output encoding. Organizations should implement comprehensive input validation that filters or escapes special characters in user-supplied content, particularly in fields that are later rendered in HTML contexts. Additionally, the application should employ Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to limit the execution of inline scripts and prevent unauthorized code execution. Regular security audits should be conducted to identify similar input handling vulnerabilities across the application, and administrators should be educated about the risks of storing unescaped user input in web contexts. The fix should also include proper sanitization of JSON data before rendering it in HTML contexts, ensuring that all user-controllable data undergoes appropriate encoding before being displayed to end users.