The Agro-School Management System version 1. has been found to suffer from an Incorrect Access Control vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to perform unauthorized actions within the application. The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2024-25251, could have a significant impact on the integrity and confidentiality of the system. This blog post will discuss the details of this vulnerability, including the code snippet that demonstrates the issue, original references, and an outline of the exploit.

Description

The Agro-School Management System is a comprehensive solution designed to help agricultural institutions manage their resources and operations effectively. The system provides features for handling student registration, exam management, fee payment, and other critical tasks. However, the Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in version 1. exposes sensitive functionality and data to attackers without proper authentication or authorization.

This vulnerability is caused by the lack of proper access control mechanisms in the management system, allowing anyone without appropriate permissions to perform actions like adding, editing, or deleting records from the database. The consequence of this vulnerability is that unauthorized users can tamper with student records, grades, or other essential data.

Code Snippet

The following code snippet demonstrates the Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in the Agro-School Management System 1.:

function add_student() {
    // ... (irrelevant code)
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $mobile = $_POST['mobile'];
    $address = $_POST['address'];
    // ... (more data points)

    $query = "INSERT INTO students (name, email, mobile, address) VALUES ('$name', '$email', '$mobile', '$address')";
    $result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);
    if ($result) {
        // ... (insertion success)
    } else {
        // ... (handle insertion failure)
    }
}

As we can see, the function add_student() inserts a new student record into the database without checking whether the current user has the appropriate permissions to perform this action. An attacker could exploit this by sending a specially crafted HTTP POST request with the necessary form data to call this function and modify the database.

Original References

The incorrect access control vulnerability was identified by security researchers [XYZ](LINK_TO_THE_SECURITY_RESEARCH) and [ABC](LINK_TO_THE_SECURITY_RESEARCH) and was reported to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) on DATE. Further information on the vulnerability can be found in the MITRE CVE Dictionary.

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by following these steps

1. Send a specially crafted HTTP POST request to the vulnerable endpoint (e.g., /add_student.php), containing all the necessary form data to create a new student record.
2. Observe that the server responds with a success message, indicating that the record has been added to the database without any access control checks.
3. Repeat this process for other actions like editing and deleting records or for accessing other sensitive functions exposed by the management system.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Agro-School Management System 1. suffers from an Incorrect Access Control vulnerability, which could allow attackers to perform unauthorized actions within the system. The CVE-2024-25251 vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper access control measures and thorough security testing in software development.

Users are advised to contact the software vendor for an updated version or a patch to mitigate this vulnerability. Developers and security practitioners should always incorporate robust access control mechanisms in their applications to prevent unauthorized access and securely protect sensitive data.

Timeline

Published on: 02/22/2024 01:15:08 UTC
Last modified on: 02/22/2024 19:07:27 UTC