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phpMyFAQ Stored Cross-site Scripting at File Attachments

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 25, 2024 in thorsten/phpMyFAQ • Updated Mar 25, 2024

Package

composer phpmyfaq/phpmyfaq (Composer)

Affected versions

= 3.2.5

Patched versions

3.2.6

Description

Summary

An attacker with admin privileges can upload an attachment containing JS code without extension and the application will render it as HTML which allows for XSS attacks.

Details

When attachments are uploaded without an extension, the application renders it as HTML by default. Therefore allowing attackers to upload .html files containing javascript code to perform XSS attacks. The direct file path to the uploaded attachment is also easily obtainable as it is made up of substrings of the file's MD5 hashes.

PoC

  1. Admin users can upload attachments containing XSS payloads in files without extensions to bypass the .html extension check.
    image

  2. Since the path of the uploaded file is built entirely on the file’s MD5 hash and the attachment directory, it is possible for an attacker to know the direct path of the uploaded file.

E.g file MD5 hash: 38fff51cb7248a06d6142c6bdf846831

URL will be: http://127.0.0.1/phpmyfaq/attachments/38fff/51cb7/248a0/6d6142c6bdf846831

- /attachments
- /38fff (first 5 chars of MD5 hash)
- /51cb7 (next 5 chars of MD5 hash)
- /248a0 (next 5 chars of MD5 hash)
- /6d6142c6bdf846831 (remaining chars of MD5 hash)
  1. Even though the attachment was uploaded without a file extension, it is still rendered as .html, hence triggering the XSS payload.
    image

Impact

This allows an attacker to execute arbitrary client side JavaScript within the context of another user's phpMyFAQ session.

References

@thorsten thorsten published to thorsten/phpMyFAQ Mar 25, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 25, 2024
Reviewed Mar 25, 2024
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Mar 25, 2024
Last updated Mar 25, 2024

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
High
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
Low

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

EPSS score

0.043%
(10th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2024-29179

GHSA ID

GHSA-hm8r-95g3-5hj9

Source code

Credits

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