Multiple vulnerabilities in Elefant CMS

Advisory ID: HTB23076
Product: Elefant CMS
Vendor: Elefant CMS
Vulnerable Version(s): 1.1.3 beta and probably prior
Tested Version: 1.1.3 beta
Vendor Notification: 22 February 2012
Vendor Patch: 22 February 2012
Public Disclosure: 14 March 2012
Vulnerability Type: SQL Injection, XSS (Cross Site Scripting)
CVE Reference(s): CVE-2012-1295, CVE-2012-1296
Solution Status: Fixed by Vendor
Risk Level: Medium
Credit: High-Tech Bridge SA Security Research Lab ( https://www.htbridge.ch/advisory/ )

Advisory Details:

High-Tech Bridge SA Security Research Lab has discovered multiple vulnerabilities in Elefant CMS, which can be exploited to perform SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.

1) Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in Elefant CMS: CVE-2012-1296

1.1 Input passed via the "title" and "body" GET parameters to /admin/preview is not properly sanitised before being returned to the user.
This can be exploited to execute arbitrary HTML and script code in a user's browser session in context of affected website.

The following PoC (Proof of Concept) demonstrate the vulnerability:

<form action="http://[host]/admin/preview" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="title" value="<script>alert(document.cookie);</script>">
<input type="hidden" name="body" value="<script>alert(document.cookie);</script>">
<input type="submit" value="submit" id="btn">
</form>

2) SQL Injection in Elefant CMS: CVE-2012-1295

2.1 Input passed via the "offset" GET parameter to /admin/pages, /admin/versions, /user/admin, /blocks/admin, /blog/admin is not properly sanitised before being used in SQL query.
This can be exploited to alter SQL queries.
The vulnerability usage is limited to the "INTO FILE" clause. This vulnerability requires administrative privileges, however can be exploited via the CSRF technique. Remote attacker should make logged-in website administrator open the following URL:

http://[host]/user/admin?offset=2 INTO OUTFILE '…/…/…/…/path/to/site/files/file.php'

Prior to this, the attacker should create a new user account with "&lt;? include($url); ?&gt;" (or any other) name. Then the attacker should also calculate the "offset" parameter in the URL above in such a manner that the newly created user would be displayed in the users list.

Depending on MySQL and PHP configurations, as well as file system permissions this PoC should create arbitrary PHP file within the web root.

Solution:

Upgrade to 1.0.2-Stable or 1.1.5-Beta.

More information:
http://www.elefantcms.com/forum/discussion/39/elefant-1.0.2-and-1.1.5-security-updates-released

References:

[1] High-Tech Bridge Advisory HTB23076 - https://www.htbridge.ch/advisory/HTB23076 - Multiple vulnerabilities in Elefant CMS.
[2] Elefant CMS - http://www.elefantcms.com - Elefant is a web framework and content management system written in PHP.
[3] Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) - http://cve.mitre.org/ - international in scope and free for public use, CVE® is a dictionary of publicly known information security vulnerabilities and exposures.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this Advisory is provided "as is" and without any warranty of any kind. Details of this Advisory may be updated in order to provide as accurate information as possible. The latest version of the Advisory is available on web page [1] in the References.