Elefant CMS cross-site request forgery

Vulnerability

Overview

CVE-2017-20062 describes a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Elefant CMS version 1.3.12-RC. The issue affects an unspecified processing component, where the application fails to validate or include anti-CSRF tokens, enabling an attacker to craft malicious requests that are executed in the context of an authenticated user [1].

Exploitation

The attack is remotely exploitable and does not require authentication on the attacker's part; instead, it relies on tricking a logged-in administrator or user into visiting a malicious page or clicking a crafted link. The exploit has been publicly disclosed, increasing the risk of active exploitation [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to perform unintended actions on the Elefant CMS backend, such as modifying settings, creating or deleting content, or altering user permissions, depending on the privileges of the victim. This can lead to partial compromise of the CMS instance and data integrity loss [1].

Mitigation

The vulnerability is addressed in Elefant CMS version 1.3.13. Users are strongly advised to upgrade to this version or later. The Elefant CMS project provides the source code and updates via its GitHub repository [2]. No workarounds have been documented, and the vendor recommends upgrading as the sole remediation.