CVE-2018-8908 in Frog
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in /admin/?/user/add in Frog CMS 0.9.5. The application's add user functionality suffers from CSRF. A malicious user can craft an HTML page and use it to trick a victim into clicking on it; once executed, a malicious user will be created with admin privileges. This happens due to lack of an anti-CSRF token in state modification requests.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/12/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-8908 affects Frog CMS version 0.9.5 and resides within the administrative user management functionality. This represents a critical security flaw that undermines the integrity of the application's access control mechanisms. The vulnerability specifically manifests in the URL path /admin/?/user/add where the application fails to implement proper anti-cross-site request forgery protection measures. This absence creates a significant attack vector that allows malicious actors to exploit the system's trust relationship with authenticated administrators.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the application's failure to validate the origin of state modification requests within its administrative interface. When a user accesses the add user functionality, the system should require a unique anti-CSRF token that is generated for each session and validated upon request submission. Without this token validation, any attacker capable of诱导 victim users to visit a malicious webpage can execute unauthorized administrative actions. The flaw operates at the application logic level and directly violates fundamental web security principles that protect against unauthorized modifications to application state.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and potentially catastrophic for affected systems. An attacker who successfully exploits this CSRF vulnerability can create new administrative user accounts with full privileges, effectively gaining complete control over the Frog CMS instance. This unauthorized administrative access enables attackers to modify content, delete files, install malicious software, manipulate user permissions, and potentially escalate their access to underlying system resources. The attack requires minimal technical expertise and can be executed through simple HTML page crafting, making it particularly dangerous for organizations that rely on Frog CMS for content management.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in web applications. From an adversarial perspective, this flaw maps directly to techniques described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the T1078 credential access and T1059 execution techniques. The attack chain typically involves crafting a malicious webpage that automatically submits a request to the vulnerable endpoint when visited, leveraging the victim's authenticated session to perform administrative actions without their knowledge or consent. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including the deployment of anti-CSRF tokens, implementation of proper request validation, and consideration of additional security headers such as Content Security Policy to prevent unauthorized script execution.
Organizations utilizing Frog CMS 0.9.5 should prioritize immediate remediation through official vendor patches or version upgrades to address this vulnerability. The implementation of anti-CSRF tokens should be enforced across all state-modifying administrative endpoints, with proper validation mechanisms that tie tokens to specific user sessions and request contexts. Additionally, security-conscious administrators should conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments of their web applications to identify similar CSRF vulnerabilities in other components, as this type of flaw often indicates broader architectural security deficiencies that require systematic remediation approaches.