CVE-2020-10489 in PHPKB Standard Multi-Language
Summary
by MITRE
CSRF in admin/manage-tickets.php in Chadha PHPKB Standard Multi-Language 9 allows attackers to delete a ticket via a crafted request.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/12/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2020-10489 represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the Chadha PHPKB Standard Multi-Language version 9 web application. This security weakness specifically affects the admin/manage-tickets.php endpoint, which serves as the administrative interface for ticket management within the knowledge base system. The flaw stems from insufficient validation of request origins and lack of proper anti-CSRF token implementation in the ticket deletion functionality. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by crafting malicious requests that appear to originate from legitimate administrative users, thereby enabling unauthorized ticket deletion operations. The vulnerability is particularly concerning as it operates at the administrative level, potentially allowing threat actors to disrupt service operations, remove critical support tickets, or manipulate the knowledge base content.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability demonstrates a failure in proper web application security controls that aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. The flaw occurs when the application fails to validate that requests originate from the legitimate administrative interface rather than from external malicious sources. This weakness is further compounded by the absence of anti-CSRF tokens or similar protective mechanisms that would normally be required for state-changing operations within web applications. The vulnerability exists because the manage-tickets.php script does not perform adequate verification of the request source or implement proper session validation before executing ticket deletion commands. This design flaw allows attackers to leverage the trust relationship between the web application and authenticated administrative users.
The operational impact of CVE-2020-10489 extends beyond simple data manipulation, as it can significantly disrupt service delivery and compromise the integrity of the knowledge base system. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability can delete critical support tickets, potentially removing important troubleshooting information or customer communications from the database. This disruption can lead to service degradation, as support staff may lose access to historical ticket data necessary for resolving ongoing issues. The vulnerability also represents a potential attack vector for more sophisticated operations, as it could be combined with other exploits to create a broader attack surface. From an attacker perspective, this vulnerability provides a low-effort method to cause operational disruption while maintaining plausible deniability due to the legitimate appearance of the administrative requests.
Organizations using Chadha PHPKB Standard Multi-Language version 9 should immediately implement mitigations to address this CSRF vulnerability. The primary remediation involves implementing proper anti-CSRF token mechanisms within the admin/manage-tickets.php script, ensuring that each state-changing request includes a unique, unpredictable token that validates the legitimate user session. Additionally, implementing strict origin validation checks and requiring proper session verification before executing ticket deletion operations would effectively prevent unauthorized modifications. Security teams should also consider implementing request forgery protection measures such as the use of referer headers validation and implementing Content Security Policy headers to prevent unauthorized script execution. These mitigations align with the ATT&CK framework's privilege escalation and defense evasion techniques, as they address the fundamental weakness that allows attackers to perform administrative actions without proper authorization, thereby preventing potential lateral movement within the system and maintaining the integrity of the web application's administrative controls.