CVE-2019-10263 in Cloud Backup Suite
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in Ahsay Cloud Backup Suite before 8.1.1.50. When creating a trial account, it is possible to inject XSS in the Alias field, allowing the attacker to retrieve the admin's cookie and take over the account.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/13/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-10263 represents a critical cross-site scripting flaw within the Ahsay Cloud Backup Suite platform prior to version 8.1.1.50. This security weakness specifically manifests during the trial account creation process, where the Alias field fails to properly sanitize user input, creating an exploitable entry point for malicious actors. The vulnerability falls under the category of insecure input handling and demonstrates poor web application security practices that can have severe consequences for system administrators and organizations relying on the backup solution.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient validation and sanitization of user-supplied data within the Alias field parameter. When a user creates a trial account, the system accepts input without proper encoding or filtering, allowing malicious scripts to be injected into the application's response. This XSS vulnerability operates in a stored manner, meaning that the malicious payload persists within the application's database and can be executed whenever the affected page is accessed. The flaw enables attackers to execute arbitrary JavaScript code in the context of the victim's browser, specifically targeting the administrative interface where session cookies are stored.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft, as it provides attackers with complete administrative control over affected accounts. By successfully injecting malicious scripts into the Alias field, an attacker can steal the admin's session cookie through techniques such as document.cookie access or by exfiltrating the cookie value to a remote server. This session hijacking capability allows unauthorized individuals to impersonate legitimate administrators, potentially gaining access to sensitive backup data, modifying system configurations, or performing administrative actions without authorization. The attack vector is particularly concerning because it requires minimal user interaction beyond the initial account creation process, making it an attractive target for automated exploitation.
Organizations utilizing Ahsay Cloud Backup Suite versions prior to 8.1.1.50 face significant risk from this vulnerability, as it directly undermines the security model of the platform and exposes critical administrative functions to unauthorized access. The flaw aligns with CWE-79 which catalogs cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, and represents a clear violation of secure coding practices outlined in the OWASP Top Ten. From an attack perspective, this vulnerability maps to multiple ATT&CK techniques including T1566 for credential access through social engineering and T1078 for valid accounts usage. The remediation strategy must focus on implementing proper input validation and output encoding mechanisms, specifically ensuring that all user-supplied data is sanitized before being processed or stored within the system.
The recommended mitigation approach involves upgrading to Ahsay Cloud Backup Suite version 8.1.1.50 or later, which includes proper input sanitization and validation controls. Additionally, organizations should implement comprehensive input filtering that encodes special characters, utilize Content Security Policy headers to limit script execution, and consider implementing web application firewalls to detect and block malicious payloads. Security teams should also conduct thorough code reviews to identify similar input validation weaknesses in other components of the application and establish proper logging mechanisms to detect potential exploitation attempts. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be performed to ensure that similar issues do not exist in other parts of the backup infrastructure, as the presence of one XSS vulnerability often indicates broader security implementation gaps.