CVE-2023-5902 in pkp-lib
Summary
by MITRE • 11/07/2023
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in GitHub repository pkp/pkp-lib prior to 3.3.0-16.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/24/2026
Cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities represent a critical class of web application security flaws that allow attackers to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users within the context of their session. The specific vulnerability identified in the pkp/pkp-lib repository affects versions prior to 3.3.0-16 and demonstrates how insufficient protection mechanisms can enable malicious actors to exploit legitimate user permissions for harmful purposes. This type of vulnerability falls under the CWE-352 category which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications.
The technical flaw in pkp/pkp-lib stems from inadequate validation of request origins and lack of proper anti-CSRF token implementation within the application's form processing mechanisms. When users navigate to malicious websites or click on compromised links, attackers can craft requests that appear to originate from legitimate sources within the application context. The vulnerability specifically impacts the repository management functionality where administrative actions such as user creation, permission modifications, and system configuration changes could be executed without proper authorization checks. This weakness allows attackers to leverage existing authenticated sessions to perform unauthorized operations against the vulnerable system.
The operational impact of this CSRF vulnerability extends beyond simple data manipulation to potentially compromise entire system integrity and availability. Attackers could exploit this weakness to add malicious users with elevated privileges, modify critical system settings, or disrupt normal application operations through unauthorized administrative actions. In the context of academic publishing platforms like those built on pkp/pkp-lib, such exploitation could lead to data corruption, unauthorized content publication, or complete system compromise that affects research institutions and scholarly communication networks. The vulnerability particularly threatens environments where multiple administrators collaborate and where session management is critical for maintaining system security.
Organizations utilizing pkp/pkp-lib should prioritize immediate patching of affected versions to address this CSRF vulnerability. The remediation strategy involves implementing robust anti-CSRF token mechanisms that validate request authenticity through unique tokens generated per session and validated on each request. Security teams should also review existing session management practices and ensure proper origin validation is implemented throughout the application's request processing pipeline. Implementation of Content Security Policy headers and proper request validation can provide additional defense layers against similar attacks. This vulnerability serves as a reminder that even well-established open source platforms require regular security auditing and timely patch management to prevent exploitation by threat actors who continuously scan for such weaknesses in web applications. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this type of vulnerability under the T1548.002 technique for privilege escalation through abuse of authentication tokens, highlighting the importance of proper session validation mechanisms.