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GulfTech Security Research February 18, 2006

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Vendor : John Lim

URL : http://adodb.sourceforge.net/

Version : ADOdb <= 4.71

Risk : Cross Site Scripting

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Description:
ADOdb is a database abstraction library for php used by a
great deal of projects to provide support for a number of
well known database api's. ADOdb also comes with various
functions to perform routine database related tasks. One
of the more useful of these functions is ADOdb's ability
to paginate the retrieved database records by using the
ADODB_Pager class. However, there are several cross site
scripting issues within the ADODB_Pager class that may
allow for an attacker to render malicious client side code
in the victims browser. An updated version of ADOdb has been
released, and users should update their ADOdb library.

Cross Site Scripting:
There are several Cross Site Scripting issues in ADOdb versions
4.71 and possibly earlier that may allow for an attacker to
render malicious client side code in the victim's browser.

if (isset($_GET[$next_page])) {
$_SESSION[$curr_page] = $_GET[$next_page];
}
if (empty($_SESSION[$curr_page])) $_SESSION[$curr_page] = 1; ## at first
page

$this->curr_page = $_SESSION[$curr_page];

The above code is taken from adodb-pager.inc.php @ lines 72-77
and ultimately set's the $this->curr_page variable to unsanitized
user supplied input. Later on this variable is used when drawing
the links for the pagination, thus allowing for Cross Site
Scripting attacks to be possible. There are also several unsafe
PHP_SELF calls within the script that allow for similar Cross
Site Scripting attacks. In addition to these issues there are
also several input validation issues in the performance scripts
such as adodb-perf.inc.php and perf-oci8.inc.php, but these
will not be addressed as the author says:

"The adodb perf files assume that you can execute any
sql in the system from the sql form we provide. True
that there could be security issues in the perf
scripts, but using the perf files already assume (and
require) a high level of trust."

We may include details of these vulnerabilities in this
advisory at a later date. However, a new version of ADOdb
was just released to address the previously mentioned Cross
Site Scripting issues.

Solution:
A new version of ADOdb was recently released which addresses
the previously mentioned Cross Site Scripting issues. Users
should upgrade their current vulnerable ADOdb libraries. Thanks
to John Lim for a very prompt resolution to this issue.

Related Info:
The original advisory can be found at the following location
http://www.gulftech.org/?node=research&amp;article_id=00101-02182006