Overview
Today we’re addressing a newly discovered vulnerability, CVE-2023-41520, which impacts the Student Attendance Management System v1. This vulnerability, a SQL injection flaw, can potentially compromise the entire system or lead to data leakage, affecting all users of the affected software. SQL injection vulnerabilities are a persistent issue in cybersecurity, and this particular vulnerability underlines the importance of effective input validation and sanitization practices in web application development.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2023-41520
Severity: High (CVSS: 8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise, data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Student Attendance Management System | v1
How the Exploit Works
This vulnerability stems from the application’s insufficient sanitization of user input in createClassArms.php via the classId and classArmName parameters. An attacker can manipulate these parameters with malicious SQL code. When this manipulated input is processed by the application, the malicious SQL code is executed on the backend database. This can lead to unauthorized viewing, modification, or deletion of data, or potentially even full system control.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability. This is a hypothetical HTTP request where the attacker injects SQL code into the ‘classId’ parameter:
POST /createClassArms.php HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
classId=1; DROP TABLE Students; --&classArmName=ExampleIn this conceptual example, the SQL command `DROP TABLE Students;` is injected into the application. If this command is executed, it will result in the deletion of the ‘Students’ table from the database.
Mitigation
The most effective way to mitigate this vulnerability is to apply the patch provided by the vendor. In cases where the patch cannot be immediately applied, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be used as temporary mitigation. These systems can be configured to detect and block known SQL injection attack patterns. However, this is only a temporary solution and the vendor’s patch should be applied as soon as possible to fully close the vulnerability.