CVE-2018-5969 in Photography
Summary
by MITRE
Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) exists in Photography CMS 1.0 via clients/resources/ajax/ajax_new_admin.php, as demonstrated by adding an admin account.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/30/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-5969 represents a critical cross site request forgery flaw within Photography CMS version 1.0 that specifically affects the administrative functionality through the clients/resources/ajax/ajax_new_admin.php endpoint. This weakness allows malicious actors to execute unauthorized administrative actions without proper authentication, fundamentally compromising the security posture of the content management system. The vulnerability manifests when an attacker crafts a malicious request that, when executed by an authenticated administrator, results in the creation of a new administrative account, thereby granting the attacker persistent access to the system.
This CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-forgery token validation within the administrative ajax endpoint. The photography cms application fails to implement sufficient state validation mechanisms to verify that requests originate from legitimate administrative users rather than malicious third parties. The flaw operates by leveraging the trust relationship between the web application and the authenticated user, where the application processes requests without confirming that the request was genuinely initiated by the administrator. The specific endpoint clients/resources/ajax/ajax_new_admin.php serves as the attack vector, accepting administrative commands that should require explicit authorization but instead process them without adequate verification.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple account creation, as it provides attackers with a persistent foothold within the photography cms environment. Once an attacker successfully exploits this CSRF flaw, they can establish administrative accounts that grant full access to the content management system, potentially leading to data exfiltration, content manipulation, or further lateral movement within the network. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it can be exploited through social engineering techniques, where administrators are tricked into visiting malicious websites or clicking on compromised links that automatically submit requests to the vulnerable endpoint. This makes the attack surface significantly larger as it requires minimal technical expertise from the attacker while providing maximum access privileges.
Security mitigations for this vulnerability should focus on implementing robust anti-forgery token mechanisms throughout the application's administrative interfaces. The photography cms should incorporate unique, unpredictable tokens that are generated for each administrative session and validated on every request to the ajax_new_admin.php endpoint. Additionally, implementing proper referer header validation and same-site cookie attributes can provide additional layers of protection against cross site request forgery attacks. Organizations should also consider implementing the principle of least privilege by ensuring that administrative functions require multiple forms of authentication or approval processes. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352 which specifically addresses cross site request forgery weaknesses and maps to attack techniques within the ATT&CK framework under T1078 for valid accounts and T1566 for social engineering. Regular security assessments and input validation should be implemented to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in other parts of the application's ajax functionality. The fix requires comprehensive code review of all administrative endpoints to ensure that proper session validation and token verification mechanisms are consistently applied throughout the application's architecture.