CVE-2019-15555 in Wellness-app
Summary
by MITRE
FredReinink Wellness-app before 2019-06-19 allows SQL injection, related to dietTrack.php, exerciseGenerator.php, fitnessTrack.php, and server.php.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/04/2023
This vulnerability represents a critical SQL injection flaw in the FredReinink Wellness-app version prior to 2019-06-19, affecting multiple core application components including dietTrack.php, exerciseGenerator.php, fitnessTrack.php, and server.php. The vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and improper parameter handling within the application's database interaction mechanisms, allowing malicious actors to inject arbitrary SQL commands through user-controllable parameters. The flaw manifests when the application fails to properly sanitize or escape user-supplied data before incorporating it into SQL query constructs, creating an attack surface where attackers can manipulate database operations and potentially gain unauthorized access to sensitive information.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability aligns with CWE-89 which specifically addresses SQL injection weaknesses in software applications. The attack vector typically involves crafting malicious input that bypasses the application's validation layers and gets directly executed within the database context. This allows threat actors to perform unauthorized data retrieval, modification, or deletion operations on the underlying database system. The affected files suggest a comprehensive scope of impact across the application's nutritional tracking, exercise generation, and fitness monitoring functionalities, indicating that the vulnerability exists at a fundamental level within the application's data handling architecture rather than being isolated to a single component.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft, potentially enabling attackers to escalate privileges, execute arbitrary commands on the database server, or even achieve full system compromise depending on the database configuration and access controls. The presence of multiple vulnerable files suggests that the application's database interaction patterns are inconsistent or poorly implemented across different functional modules, indicating a broader architectural weakness in input sanitization and security controls. This vulnerability directly maps to several ATT&CK techniques including T1071.004 for application layer protocols and T1213.002 for data from information repositories, as attackers could leverage this weakness to extract sensitive user information, fitness data, and potentially personal health information stored within the application's database.
Mitigation strategies should focus on implementing proper input validation and parameterized queries across all database interaction points within the affected application components. The recommended approach includes adopting prepared statements or parameterized queries to ensure that user input is properly escaped and treated as data rather than executable code. Additionally, implementing proper access controls, database query logging, and regular security assessments can help detect and prevent exploitation attempts. The application should also be updated to the patched version released on or after June 19, 2019, which addresses the specific input validation issues identified in the vulnerability. Organizations should conduct thorough penetration testing and vulnerability scanning to identify similar patterns in other application components that might be susceptible to the same class of vulnerabilities, particularly focusing on areas where user input directly influences database operations and following the principle of least privilege for database access rights.