CVE-2024-37543 in Ultimate Auction Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 01/02/2025
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Nitesh Singh Ultimate Auction allows Cross Site Request Forgery.This issue affects Ultimate Auction : from n/a through 4.2.5.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/16/2025
The CVE-2024-37543 vulnerability represents a critical Cross-Site Request Forgery flaw within the Ultimate Auction plugin developed by Nitesh Singh. This vulnerability manifests as a CSRF weakness that enables attackers to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users within the affected system. The vulnerability impacts all versions of the Ultimate Auction plugin from the initial release through version 4.2.5, indicating a prolonged exposure window that could have allowed extensive exploitation. The flaw resides in the plugin's failure to properly validate and verify the origin of HTTP requests, creating a pathway for malicious actors to manipulate user sessions and execute unintended operations.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from inadequate anti-CSRF token mechanisms within the plugin's web application framework. When users access the auction platform, legitimate requests should be validated against a unique, unpredictable token generated server-side and embedded within forms or request parameters. However, the Ultimate Auction plugin fails to enforce this validation, allowing attackers to craft malicious requests that appear to originate from authenticated users. This weakness directly aligns with CWE-352, which categorizes Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities as those lacking proper request origin verification or token validation mechanisms. The vulnerability's exploitation typically involves tricking users into clicking malicious links or visiting compromised websites that automatically submit requests to the vulnerable auction system.
The operational impact of this CSRF vulnerability extends beyond simple data manipulation, potentially enabling complete account takeovers, unauthorized auction creation, bid manipulation, and financial loss for users. Attackers could exploit this weakness to place unauthorized bids on items, modify auction parameters, transfer funds, or even delete auction listings. The vulnerability particularly affects online auction platforms where user authentication and session management are critical components, as it undermines the fundamental security principle of ensuring that requests originate from legitimate sources. This type of vulnerability can result in significant financial damage to both platform operators and end users, while also potentially violating industry standards such as those outlined in the OWASP Top Ten Project, which consistently ranks CSRF among the critical web application security risks. The vulnerability's presence in versions up to 4.2.5 suggests that organizations running these plugin versions face substantial risk without proper mitigation measures.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2024-37543 should prioritize immediate plugin updates to versions that address the CSRF validation flaw, as provided by the vendor. Organizations must also implement additional defensive measures including the enforcement of anti-CSRF tokens for all state-changing operations, proper implementation of the SameSite cookie attributes, and comprehensive request origin validation. Security teams should conduct thorough penetration testing to identify potential exploitation pathways and ensure that all user-facing forms contain unique tokens that are validated server-side. The implementation of Content Security Policy headers can provide additional protection layers against CSRF attacks, while regular security audits of web applications should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other components. According to ATT&CK framework category T1531, this vulnerability represents an attack surface that could be leveraged for privilege escalation and lateral movement within affected systems, making proactive remediation essential for maintaining overall security posture.