Overview
CVE-2024-44655 identifies a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability found in PHPGurukul Complaint Management System version 2.0. This flaw allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into the application via the ‘search’ parameter within the user-search.php file. Successfully exploiting this vulnerability could lead to session hijacking, defacement of the website, or redirection of users to malicious sites.
Technical Details
The vulnerability resides in the user-search.php page of the PHPGurukul Complaint Management System 2.0. The application fails to properly sanitize or encode user-supplied input in the ‘search’ parameter before rendering it in the HTML output. This allows an attacker to inject arbitrary JavaScript code into the page. When a user visits the page with the crafted URL, the injected script will execute in their browser context.
For example, a malicious URL might look like this:
http://example.com/complaint-management-system/user-search.php?search=<script>alert('XSS Vulnerability!');</script>When a user visits this URL, the alert('XSS Vulnerability!'); JavaScript code will execute.
CVSS Analysis
Currently, the CVSS score and severity are marked as N/A. This likely means the vulnerability hasn’t been formally scored yet. However, XSS vulnerabilities are generally considered to be of medium to high severity, depending on the context and potential impact.
Possible Impact
The exploitation of this XSS vulnerability could have several serious consequences:
- Session Hijacking: An attacker could steal a user’s session cookie, allowing them to impersonate the user and access sensitive data.
- Website Defacement: The attacker could modify the content of the website, potentially damaging its reputation.
- Malware Distribution: The attacker could redirect users to malicious websites that host malware.
- Phishing: The attacker could inject phishing forms into the website to steal user credentials.
Mitigation and Patch Steps
To mitigate this vulnerability, the following steps should be taken:
- Input Validation: Implement strict input validation on the ‘search’ parameter in
user-search.php. Sanitize or encode all user-supplied input before rendering it in the HTML output. - Output Encoding: Use proper output encoding techniques (e.g., HTML entity encoding) to prevent the browser from interpreting user-supplied data as executable code.
- Patching: Upgrade to a patched version of PHPGurukul Complaint Management System if one is available. Contact PHPGurukul for a patch or workaround.
- Web Application Firewall (WAF): Implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to detect and block XSS attacks.
Contact PHPGurukul support to inquire about an official patch or workaround for this vulnerability.
