CVE-2023-44770

Vulnerability

Overview

CVE-2023-44770 describes a reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Zenario CMS version 9.4.59197. The root cause is insufficient sanitization of user-supplied input in the "Spare alias" field within the Organizer functionality [1][3]. As a result, an attacker can inject arbitrary JavaScript code that executes in the context of the victim's browser session.

Attack

Vector and Exploitation

The exploit requires the attacker to have local access and be authenticated as an administrator, since the Organizer menu is part of the backend interface [3]. The attacker navigates to "Organizer - Spare alias" and creates a new spare alias containing a crafted XSS payload, such as ' onfocus="alert(1)" autofocus=". When the victim administrator views or interacts with the affected page, the injected script executes [3].

Impact

Successful exploitation leads to arbitrary JavaScript execution, enabling the attacker to perform actions such as session hijacking, defacement, or sensitive data exfiltration within the context of the affected Zenario admin session. Zenario is an open-source CMS written in PHP, often used for multilingual and extranet sites, which amplifies the potential damage from unauthorized admin access [2].

Mitigation

As of the published date (October 2023), the vendor had not released a patch for this specific vulnerability. Users are advised to apply input validation and output encoding for the affected field, restrict admin access, and monitor the official repository for updates [2][3].