Advanced Electron Forums (AEF) 1.0.9 <= Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Vulnerability

[YGN Ethical Hacker Group <lists@xxxxxxxx>]

Advanced Electron Forums (AEF) 1.0.9 <= Cross Site Request Forgery
(CSRF) Vulnerability



1. OVERVIEW

The Advanced Electron Forums (AEF)  1.0.9 <= versions are vulnerable
to Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF).


2. BACKGROUND

AEF has a very simple and easy to use Administration Panel and
installing this software is a piece of cake! You can install new
themes, customize themes the way you want. The User Control Panel has
a simple yet beautiful interface where users can set their preferences
for the board.


3. VULNERABILITY DESCRIPTION

Advanced Electron Forums (AEF) 1.0.9 <=  versions contain a flaw that
allows a remote Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF / XSRF) attack. The
flaw exists because the application does not require multiple steps or
explicit confirmation for sensitive transactions for majority of
administrator functions such as adding new user, assigning user to
administrative privilege. By using a crafted URL, an attacker may
trick the victim into visiting to his web page to take advantage of
the trust relationship between the authenticated victim and the
application. Such an attack could trick the victim into executing
arbitrary commands in the context of their session with the
application, without further prompting or verification.


4. VERSIONS AFFECTED

1.0.9 <=


5. PROOF-OF-CONCEPT/EXPLOIT

The following request ecalates a normal user to an administrator.

[REQUEST]
POST /aef/index.php?act=editprofile&uid=2 HTTP/1.1

username=tester&email=tester%40yehg.net&u_member_group=1&realname=&title=&location=&gender=1&privatetext=&icq=&yim=&msn=&aim=&www=&sig=&editprofile=Edit+Profile
[/REQUEST]


6. SOLUTION

Partial fix is available.
The vendor released a single patch for the provided vulnerable
EditProfile functionality.
http://www.anelectron.com/downloads/index.php?act=downloadattach&atid=59


7. VENDOR

Electron Inc.
http://www.anelectron.com/


8. CREDIT

This vulnerability was discovered by Aung Khant, http://yehg.net, YGN
Ethical Hacker Group, Myanmar.


9. DISCLOSURE TIME-LINE

2010-12-14: notified vendor through email, website contact form submission
2011-05-17: vendor released aef 1.0.9 without the CSRF fix
2011-09-06: vendor released separate patch about the CSRF fix
2011-09-26: vulnerability disclosed


10. REFERENCES

Original Advisory URL:
http://yehg.net/lab/pr0js/advisories/[aef-1.x]_cross_site_request_forgery
CSRF Wiki: 
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery



#yehg [2011-09-26]