CVE-2025-48340: Critical CSRF Vulnerability in Danny Vink User Profile Meta Manager Allows Privilege Escalation

Overview

In a recent cybersecurity event, a significant vulnerability was discovered within the User Profile Meta Manager software developed by Danny Vink. This Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability allows for potential privilege escalation, posing a serious threat to the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data and systems where the software is implemented. Given the widespread use of User Profile Meta Manager in various online platforms, this vulnerability can have far-reaching effects, enabling unauthorized individuals to gain control over systems and potentially compromise sensitive data.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-48340
Severity: Critical (CVSS Score 9.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise and data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Danny Vink User Profile Meta Manager | n/a – 1.02

How the Exploit Works

The CSRF vulnerability in User Profile Meta Manager allows malicious actors to trick victims into performing actions without their consent. This is achieved by including a link or script in a page that accesses a site to which the user is authenticated. Once the user interacts with the malicious content, the attacker can forge a request to perform privileged tasks on behalf of the authenticated user, leading to unauthorized privilege escalation.

Conceptual Example Code

Below is a conceptual example of how the CSRF vulnerability might be exploited.

POST /user_profile/update HTTP/1.1
Host: vulnerable.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
csrf_token=12345&user_id=1&admin_privileges=true

In this example, the malicious actor manipulates the ‘admin_privileges’ parameter to ‘true’ in a POST request. If this request is processed by the server without proper validation and CSRF protection, the attacker could elevate the privileges of a standard user account to that of an admin.

Countermeasures

To mitigate this vulnerability, the recommended course of action is to apply the patch provided by the vendor. If the patch cannot be applied immediately, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be used as a temporary mitigation measure. However, these should not replace the need for patching the software as soon as possible, as they serve as additional layers of security and not a standalone solution. Up-to-date security practices such as input validation, CSRF tokens, and appropriate user privilege settings should also be implemented to prevent future vulnerabilities.