Re: CVE Request for phpMyAdmin 3.4.x, 3.4.0 beta 2 <= Stored Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability

["Steven M. Christey" <coley () rcf-smtp mitre org>]

I'm not sure about this one.

My read of the situation is that the attack depends entirely on the 
successful exploitation of another issue that gives the attacker 
privileges to modify the database.  This would rarely be a vulnerability 
to me unless the problem was in some protection mechanism.

It seems likely that phpMyAdmin's "intended" security policy is that 
anybody with privileges to directly modify the DB (e.g. to create or 
rename the DB) is a "trusted" user who also has privileges to generate 
HTML/scripting code.  If that's the case, then this XSS is only available 
to a privileged user - even if it happens to be someone who got the 
privileges through some other attack.

Consequently, the XSS is "resultant" from some other vulnerability, and 
would not be worthy of a CVE itself.

If there's some specific vulnerability that gives someone the 
privileges to modify the DB when they shouldn't be able to, then a CVE 
could be assigned for that specific issue.

If there's more than one user with privileges to modify the DB, then one 
user could XSS the other, so I suppose that would get a CVE.

If I'm mis-understanding the advisory and the attacker (or the XSS victim) 
does not have privileges to modify DB names or create a DB, then it gets a 
CVE.

If phpMyAdmin's "intended" security policy is that the application should 
be safe from XSS injected into a compromised DB, then it gets a CVE.

- Steve



On Thu, 27 Jan 2011, Josh Bressers wrote:

> Steve,
>
> Can MITRE comment on this? The advisory suggests that in order to exploit
> this, you already have to have access to the user's account in some way.
> I'm not sure what the precedent is for such a situation.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
>    JB
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Jan/486
> >
> >
> > ===================================================================================
> > phpMyAdmin 3.4.x, 3.4.0 beta 2 <= Stored Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
> > Vulnerability
> > ===================================================================================
> >
> >
> > 1. OVERVIEW
> >
> > The phpMyAdmin web application 3.4.0 beta 2 and lower versions of
> > 3.4.x were vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting.
> >
> >
> > 2. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
> >
> > phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP intended to handle
> > the administration of MySQL over the World Wide Web.
> > phpMyAdmin supports a wide range of operations with MySQL.
> > The most frequently used operations are supported by the user
> > interface (managing databases, tables, fields, relations,
> > indexes, users, permissions, etc), while you still have the ability to
> > directly execute any SQL statement.
> >
> >
> > 3. VULNERABILITY DESCRIPTION
> >
> > The 'db' parameter in phpMyAdmin was not sanitized and an attacker can
> > inject XSS string in 'db' field when creating or renaming a database.
> > An attacker can create new database name or rename database name
> > through several means like SQL Injection in user's vulnerable web
> > applications or
> > compromise of user account through brute-force or bypassing CSRF
> > protection.
> > Even though the phpMyAdmin uses httpOnly as a protection against
> > cookie theft via XSS, attacker could use XSS tunneling proxy to
> > manipulate database names and fields. From it, he could execute
> > arbitrary database commands to allow him higher access to the server.
> >
> >
> > 4. VERSIONS AFFECTED
> >
> > phpMyAdmin 3.4.0 beta 2 and lower versions of 3.4.x
> >
> > Vendor confirmed this flaw did not exist before the 3.4 version
> > family.
> > Thus, it is assumed 2.x and 3.3 <= versions are not affected.
> >
> >
> > 5. PROOF-OF-CONCEPT/EXPLOIT
> >
> > http://demo.phpmyadmin.net/trunk-config/index.php?db=%27%22--%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E%3Cscript%3Ealert%28%2FXSS%2F%29%3C%2Fscript%3E
> > http://yehg.net/lab/pr0js/advisories/phpmyadmin/3.4.0-b2-xss.jpg
> >
> >
> > 6. IMPACT
> >
> > Attackers can compromise currently logged-in user session, plant xss
> > backdoors and inject arbitrary SQL statements
> > (CREATE,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE)
> > via crafted XSS payloads.
> >
> >
> > 7. SOLUTION
> >
> > For those who're using version phpMyAdmin 3.4.0 beta 2 and lower,
> > check out the latest commit (git pull).
> >
> >
> > 8. VENDOR
> >
> > phpMyAdmin (http://www.phpmyadmin.net)
> >
> >
> > 9. CREDIT
> >
> > This vulnerability was discovered by Aung Khant, http://yehg.net, YGN
> > Ethical Hacker Group, Myanmar.
> >
> >
> > 10. DISCLOSURE TIME-LINE
> >
> > 2011-01-26: notified vendor
> > 2011-01-26: vendor released fix
> > 2011-01-27: vulnerability disclosed
> >
> >
> > 11. REFERENCES
> >
> > Vendor Commit:
> > http://phpmyadmin.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin;a=commit;h=f57daa0a59a0058a4b3be1bbdf1577b59d7d697a
> > Original Advisory URL:
> > http://yehg.net/lab/pr0js/advisories/phpmyadmin/[phpmyadmin-3.4.0-beta2]_cross_site_scripting(XSS)
> > CWE-79: http://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/79.html
> > Previous Releases:
> > http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security/PMASA-2010-6.php
> > http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security/PMASA-2010-5.php
> > http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security/PMASA-2008-5.php
> > http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security/PMASA-2008-6.php
> >
> >
> >
> > #yehg [2011-01-27]