CVE-2024-33987 in School Attendance Monitoring System
Summary
by MITRE • 08/06/2024
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in School Attendance Monitoring System and School Event Management System affecting version 1.0. An attacker could create a specially crafted URL and send it to a victim to obtain details of their session cookie via the 'Attendance', 'attenddate', 'YearLevel', 'eventdate', 'events', 'Users' and 'YearLevel' parameters in '/report/index.php'.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/15/2025
This cross-site scripting vulnerability exists within the School Attendance Monitoring System and School Event Management System version 1.0, representing a critical security flaw that enables attackers to execute malicious scripts in the context of a victim's browser session. The vulnerability specifically affects the report/index.php endpoint where multiple parameters including 'Attendance', 'attenddate', 'YearLevel', 'eventdate', 'events', 'Users', and 'YearLevel' fail to properly sanitize user input, creating an avenue for persistent XSS attacks. The flaw allows an attacker to craft malicious URLs that, when clicked by a victim, can extract session cookies and potentially hijack user sessions. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which defines cross-site scripting as the failure to properly sanitize user input, making it one of the most prevalent and dangerous web application security flaws. The attack vector leverages the principle of reflected XSS where malicious scripts are reflected off the web application and executed in the victim's browser, with the session cookie theft enabling unauthorized access to user accounts.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability demonstrates poor input validation and output encoding practices within the web application's parameter handling mechanism. When users interact with the system through the report/index.php page, the application fails to sanitize or escape user-supplied parameters before rendering them in web pages. This creates a persistent exposure where an attacker can inject malicious JavaScript code through any of the vulnerable parameters, particularly those related to date and user information. The specific parameters mentioned indicate that the application processes attendance data, event dates, and user information without adequate sanitization, allowing attackers to manipulate these inputs to execute arbitrary scripts. This flaw directly violates the OWASP Top Ten security principles and represents a failure in the application's secure coding practices, specifically in the areas of input validation and output encoding as defined by the OWASP Secure Coding Practices.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft, as it can enable complete session hijacking and unauthorized access to sensitive educational data. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability can obtain session cookies from authenticated users, potentially gaining access to the school management systems and accessing confidential information such as student records, attendance logs, event details, and user credentials. The attack requires minimal technical expertise as it only necessitates crafting a malicious URL, making it particularly dangerous in educational environments where users may be less security-aware. The vulnerability affects multiple system components including attendance monitoring and event management functionalities, indicating a systemic security weakness that could compromise the entire application. This represents a significant risk to data confidentiality and integrity as outlined in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, where such vulnerabilities can lead to unauthorized access and potential data breaches.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must address both immediate remediation and long-term architectural improvements to prevent similar issues. The primary fix involves implementing proper input validation and output encoding across all parameters in the report/index.php endpoint, ensuring that user-supplied data is sanitized before being processed or rendered in web pages. This includes implementing Content Security Policy headers, using proper HTML encoding for all dynamic content, and validating input against expected formats and ranges. Organizations should also implement proper parameter validation to reject or sanitize any input containing potentially malicious script content. The solution aligns with the ATT&CK framework's T1566 technique for initial access through social engineering, as attackers can use this vulnerability to establish persistent access through session hijacking. Additionally, regular security testing including automated vulnerability scanning and manual penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar issues in other application components, as this vulnerability represents a broader pattern of insecure data handling practices that may exist elsewhere in the system.