CVE-2018-19190 in payfort-php-SDK
Summary
by MITRE
The Amazon PAYFORT payfort-php-SDK payment gateway SDK through 2018-04-26 has XSS via the error.php error_msg parameter.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/12/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-19190 affects the Amazon PAYFORT payfort-php-SDK payment gateway software development kit version 2018-04-26 and earlier. This issue resides within the error handling mechanism of the SDK where user-supplied input is not properly sanitized before being rendered in the error.php page. The specific parameter affected is error_msg which is used to display error messages to users during payment processing failures. This represents a classic cross-site scripting vulnerability that can be exploited by malicious actors to inject malicious scripts into the payment gateway interface.
The technical flaw stems from improper input validation and output encoding practices within the SDK's error handling routine. When payment processing encounters an error, the system redirects users to error.php and displays the error_msg parameter directly in the HTML output without appropriate sanitization or encoding. This allows attackers to inject malicious JavaScript code through the error message parameter, which then executes in the context of other users' browsers who encounter the same error page. The vulnerability falls under CWE-79 which specifically addresses cross-site scripting flaws where input data is not properly validated or encoded before being output to web browsers.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for e-commerce platforms using the affected SDK. Attackers can exploit this weakness to perform various malicious activities including session hijacking, credential theft, data exfiltration, and user interface manipulation. When users encounter payment errors, they may unknowingly execute malicious scripts that can capture their session cookies, redirect them to phishing sites, or inject malicious content into the payment interface. This vulnerability particularly affects online retailers and payment processors who rely on the Amazon PAYFORT SDK for their payment infrastructure, potentially compromising the security of thousands of transactions and user accounts.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should include immediate patching of the SDK to version 2018-04-27 or later which contains the necessary security fixes. Organizations should implement proper input validation and output encoding mechanisms for all user-supplied data before rendering it in web pages. The recommended approach involves implementing Content Security Policy headers, using proper HTML escaping functions, and ensuring all parameters passed to error handling routines are sanitized. Security teams should also conduct comprehensive code reviews to identify similar vulnerabilities in other components of their payment processing infrastructure and implement automated testing procedures to detect XSS vulnerabilities in their applications. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this vulnerability under T1059.007 for scripting languages and T1566 for credential access, highlighting the potential for both execution and data theft through this vector. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls and monitoring for suspicious parameter values in their payment processing systems to detect potential exploitation attempts.