A critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-4013, was discovered in the widely used Hospital Management Center software. The security issue was found in the appointment.php file and allows attackers to perform Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks remotely. This post will break down what happened, how the exploit works, and what you can do about it.

What Is CVE-2022-4013?

This CVE identifier refers specifically to a CSRF vulnerability in Hospital Management Center’s appointment module (in the file appointment.php). A malicious actor could trick authenticated users (usually hospital staff or admins) into performing unwanted actions, such as creating or altering appointments, just by visiting a specially crafted link or website.

References

- Vulnerability Database Entry (VDB-213787)
- NIST NVD - CVE-2022-4013

How Does CSRF Work Here? Easy Example

With CSRF, the attacker doesn’t need to hack into the account directly. Instead, they make the victim’s browser send an unwanted request while the user is logged in.

Imagine:

An attacker crafts a malicious HTML page hosting the following code

<!-- This HTML submits a fake appointment request when visited by a logged-in user -->
<img src="http://hospmgt.example.com/appointment.php?action=save&patient_id=123&doctor_id=456&time=2022-06-01T14:00"; style="display:none" />

If someone (say, a hospital admin already logged into their account) visits this malicious website, their browser unknowingly sends a request to appointment.php, creating an appointment with the attacker's specified details.

Exploit Details

The vulnerable component is the appointment.php file, which processes appointment data changes without CSRF protection.

`html






document.forms[].submit();

This auto-submits the form, making a new appointment or modifying an existing one.

Notice: The attacker does not need to be authenticated, but the victim does.

Why Did This Happen?

The root problem is missing CSRF tokens. appointment.php accepts and processes incoming state-changing requests (like creating or changing appointments) *without* verifying if the request is genuine. It should use a unique anti-CSRF token with every user session or form.

`php

// appointment.php - when rendering appointment form

...

`php

// appointment.php - when processing form

die('CSRF validation failed');

}
// Proceed with processing

Further Reading

- OWASP - Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- VulDB - Hospital Management Center CSRF Vulnerability

Conclusion

CVE-2022-4013 highlights the importance of web security hygiene for healthcare software. Without proper CSRF protection, anybody can trick staff into performing sensitive actions—often without their knowledge. If you use Hospital Management Center, pressure your vendor for a swift fix or implement the recommended workaround.

Stay vigilant! If you have questions, leave a comment or reach out for more details.


Sources:
NVD
VulDB
OWASP CSRF

Timeline

Published on: 11/16/2022 08:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 11/17/2022 14:56:00 UTC