CVE-2023-44393 (published 2023-10-09T15:15Z)

Piwigo is an open source photo gallery application. Prior to version 14.0.0beta4, a reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability is in the` /admin.php?page=plugins&tab=new&installstatus=ok&plugin_id=[here]` page. This vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker to inject malicious HTML and JS code into the HTML page, which could then be executed by admin users when they visit the URL with the payload. The vulnerability is caused by the insecure injection of the `plugin_id` value from the URL into the HTML page. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by crafting a malicious URL that contains a specially crafted `plugin_id` value. When a victim who is logged in as an administrator visits this URL, the malicious code will be injected into the HTML page and executed. This vulnerability can be exploited by any attacker who has access to a malicious URL. However, only users who are logged in as administrators are affected. This is because the vulnerability is only present on the `/admin.php?page=plugins&tab=new&installstatus=ok&plugin_id=[here]` page, which is only accessible to administrators. Version 14.0.0.beta4 contains a patch for this issue.

CVSS v3 base score: 6.1, MEDIUM (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-79
cwe_name: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
description: The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
extended_description: 
            Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities occur when:
            
               Untrusted data enters a web application, typically from a web request.
               The web application dynamically generates a web page that contains this untrusted data.
               During page generation, the application does not prevent the data from containing content that is executable by a web browser, such as JavaScript, HTML tags, HTML attributes, mouse events, Flash, ActiveX, etc.
               A victim visits the generated web page through a web browser, which contains malicious script that was injected using the untrusted data.
               Since the script comes from a web page that was sent by the web server, the victim's web browser executes the malicious script in the context of the web server's domain.
               This effectively violates the intention of the web browser's same-origin policy, which states that scripts in one domain should not be able to access resources or run code in a different domain.
            
            There are three main kinds of XSS:
            
               
                  Type 1: Reflected XSS (or Non-Persistent) - 
         			The server reads data directly from the HTTP request and reflects it back in the HTTP response. Reflected XSS exploits occur when an attacker causes a victim to supply dangerous content to a vulnerable web application, which is then reflected back to the victim and executed by the web browser. The most common mechanism for delivering malicious content is to include it as a parameter in a URL that is posted publicly or e-mailed directly to the victim. URLs constructed in this manner constitute the core of many phishing schemes, whereby an attacker convinces a victim to visit a URL that refers to a vulnerable site. After the site reflects the attacker's content back to the victim, the content is executed by the victim's browser.
               
                  Type 2: Stored XSS (or Persistent) - 
               The application stores dangerous data in a database, message forum, visitor log, or other trusted data store. At a later time, the dangerous data is subsequently read back into the application and included in dynamic content. From an attacker's perspective, the optimal place to inject malicious content is in an area that is displayed to either many users or particularly interesting users. Interesting users typically have elevated privileges in the application or interact with sensitive data that is valuable to the attacker. If one of these users executes malicious content, the attacker may be able to perform privileged operations on behalf of the user or gain access to sensitive data belonging to the user. For example, the attacker might inject XSS into a log message, which might not be handled properly when an administrator views the logs.
            
               
                  Type 0: DOM-Based XSS - 
               In DOM-based XSS, the client performs the injection of XSS into the page; in the other types, the server performs the injection. DOM-based XSS generally involves server-controlled, trusted script that is sent to the client, such as Javascript that performs sanity checks on a form before the user submits it. If the server-supplied script processes user-supplied data and then injects it back into the web page (such as with dynamic HTML), then DOM-based XSS is possible.
            
            
            Once the malicious script is injected, the attacker can perform a variety of malicious activities. The attacker could transfer private information, such as cookies that may include session information, from the victim's machine to the attacker. The attacker could send malicious requests to a web site on behalf of the victim, which could be especially dangerous to the site if the victim has administrator privileges to manage that site. Phishing attacks could be used to emulate trusted web sites and trick the victim into entering a password, allowing the attacker to compromise the victim's account on that web site. Finally, the script could exploit a vulnerability in the web browser itself possibly taking over the victim's machine, sometimes referred to as "drive-by hacking."
            In many cases, the attack can be launched without the victim even being aware of it. Even with careful users, attackers frequently use a variety of methods to encode the malicious portion of the attack, such as URL encoding or Unicode, so the request looks less suspicious.
         
         
cwe_id: CWE-80
cwe_name: Improper Neutralization of Script-Related HTML Tags in a Web Page (Basic XSS)
description: The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special characters such as "<", ">", and "&" that could be interpreted as web-scripting elements when they are sent to a downstream component that processes web pages.
extended_description: This may allow such characters to be treated as control characters, which are executed client-side in the context of the user's session. Although this can be classified as an injection problem, the more pertinent issue is the improper conversion of such special characters to respective context-appropriate entities before displaying them to the user.
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/Piwigo/Piwigo
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/Piwigo/Piwigo
author: plegall
author_date: 2023-10-06 15:13:04+02:00
msg: fixes GHSA-qg85-957m-7vgg providing plugin_id in URL is useless since Piwigo 12
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/Piwigo/Piwigo
repo_name: Piwigo/Piwigo
description: Manage your photos with Piwigo, a full featured open source photo gallery application for the web. Star us on Github! More than 200 plugins and themes available. Join us and contribute!
repo_language: PHP
owner: Piwigo
file_changes: filename: plugins_new.php
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -47,11 +47,11 @@ if (isset($_GET['installstatus']))
   switch ($_GET['installstatus'])
   {
     case 'ok':
-      $activate_url = get_root_url().'admin.php?page=plugins'
-        . '&amp;plugin=' . $_GET['plugin_id']
-        . '&amp;pwg_token=' . get_pwg_token()
-        . '&amp;action=activate'
-        . '&amp;filter=deactivated';
+      // since Piwigo 12, you need to be on the page of installed plugins to active a plugin with
+      // a JS action, no need to provide plugin_id in URL, just link to the page of installed
+      // plugins, filtered on deactivated plugins. The webmaster will have to find its newly
+      // installed plugin and click on the activation switch.
+      $activate_url = get_root_url().'admin.php?page=plugins&amp;filter=deactivated';
 
       $page['infos'][] = l10n('Plugin has been successfully copied');
       $page['infos'][] = '<a href="'. $activate_url . '">' . l10n('Activate it now') . '</a>';

programming_language: PHP