CVE-2026-64962 in ATutor
Summary
by MITRE • 08/20/2026
ATutor is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in profile update functionality. An attacker can craft a malicious website which, when visited by an authenticated victim, submits a forged request to the system. Due to the lack of proper CSRF token implementation, the forged request is processed successfully, allowing an attacker to modify profile fields of an existing user.
Product is no longer actively supported and the vulnerabilities have not been fixed. Only version 2.2.4 was tested and confirmed as vulnerable, other versions were not tested but might also be vulnerable.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/20/2026
The vulnerability identified in ATutor represents a critical failure in session management and request validation mechanisms within its user profile update functionality. This flaw is classified under Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), which corresponds to CWE-352: Using Web Parameters for Trust Decisions without Proving Uniqueness or Intent. The core technical issue stems from the application's inability to distinguish between legitimate requests initiated by the authenticated user and maliciously crafted requests submitted by a third-party actor. In modern web security architectures, CSRF protections typically rely on synchronizer tokens that are unique per session and embedded in forms or headers to verify intent. ATutor’s implementation lacks this essential safeguard, allowing any state-changing request sent with valid authentication cookies from an attacker-controlled domain to be processed as if it originated directly from the user's browser.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on ATutor for educational management and user administration. An adversary can construct a malicious webpage containing hidden forms or JavaScript-driven requests that target specific endpoints responsible for updating user profiles. When an authenticated victim visits this page, their browser automatically attaches session cookies to the request due to same-origin policy exceptions regarding cross-domain submissions of certain media types like form data with content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Consequently, the attacker can silently modify critical profile attributes such as email addresses, passwords, or administrative privileges without any interaction from the victim other than visiting the malicious site. This capability effectively allows for account takeover scenarios where an attacker gains persistent access to a user's identity within the system by changing associated credentials and contact information.
From a threat modeling perspective aligned with MITRE ATT&CK frameworks, this vulnerability facilitates techniques related to Account Manipulation (T1098) and potentially Credential Access if password changes are involved. The lack of anti-CSRF tokens means that traditional defense-in-depth strategies relying solely on authentication checks are insufficient. Since the product is no longer actively supported and patches have not been released for versions including 2.2.4, remediation options are limited to architectural workarounds rather than software updates. Organizations must implement external protective measures such as deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) configured with rulesets specifically designed to detect and block CSRF patterns based on origin headers or referer validation. Additionally, enforcing strict Content Security Policy directives can help mitigate the risk by restricting script execution from untrusted sources that might attempt to exploit this flaw via JavaScript-based attacks.
Long-term mitigation requires a strategic decision regarding the continued use of ATutor given its unsupported status. The absence of vendor support implies that future vulnerabilities will remain unpatched, increasing the attack surface over time. It is strongly recommended to migrate to supported alternatives or isolate the instance within an internal network with strict access controls if migration is not immediately feasible. Network segmentation can limit exposure by ensuring that only trusted IP ranges can interact with the application backend, thereby reducing the likelihood of successful exploitation from external malicious websites. Furthermore, implementing session management best practices such as short-lived sessions and requiring re-authentication for sensitive operations like profile updates can provide an additional layer of defense against unauthorized state changes even in the absence of native CSRF protections within the application code itself.