Overview
An important vulnerability has been identified in the Student Attendance Management System v1, a software widely used by educational institutions to manage and track student attendance. Designated as CVE-2023-41521, this vulnerability exposes the system to SQL injection attacks, potentially leading to system compromise or data leakage. Given the information sensitivity managed by the system, this vulnerability poses a serious threat to the security and privacy of student data, necessitating immediate attention.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2023-41521
Severity: High (8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Student Attendance Management System | v1
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability is present in the createSessionTerm.php component of the Student Attendance Management System v1. The parameters id, termId, and sessionName are not properly filtered or escaped before being used in SQL queries. This allows an attacker to manipulate these parameters, sending specially crafted input to the server that can modify the SQL queries being executed. This can lead to unauthorized access, data corruption, or even data theft.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how an exploit might occur. In this instance, an attacker sends an HTTP POST request with manipulated data in the form of an SQL command. This command is designed to retrieve sensitive data from the database or even execute arbitrary SQL commands.
POST /createSessionTerm.php HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
id=1'; DROP TABLE students;--&termId=2&sessionName=springIn this example, the attacker injects an SQL command (“DROP TABLE students;”) into the ‘id’ parameter. If the server executes this command, it could result in the deletion of the ‘students’ table from the database.
Mitigation and Prevention
The most effective mitigation is applying the patch provided by the vendor. Organizations should contact their vendor for the appropriate patches or updates and apply them as soon as possible. If an immediate patch is not available, use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation by blocking or alerting on malicious SQL injection attempts. Additionally, organizations should enforce secure coding practices, including proper input validation and prepared statements or parameterized queries, to prevent such vulnerabilities in the future.