CVE-2019-25682: Victoralagwu Cmssite CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2019-25682 Overview

CVE-2019-25682 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability affecting CMSsite version 1.0. This vulnerability allows attackers to perform unauthorized administrative actions by crafting malicious HTML forms. When authenticated administrators visit attacker-controlled pages, POST requests are submitted to the users.php endpoint with parameters like source=add_user, source=edit_user, or del=1 to create, modify, or delete admin accounts without proper authorization verification.

Critical Impact

Attackers can leverage this CSRF vulnerability to take complete control of the CMS by creating rogue administrator accounts, modifying existing admin credentials, or deleting legitimate administrator accounts, leading to full site compromise.

Affected Products

• CMSsite 1.0 by victoralagwu
• All installations of victoralagwu cmssite version 1.0

Discovery Timeline

• 2026-04-05 - CVE-2019-25682 published to NVD
• 2026-04-09 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2019-25682

Vulnerability Analysis

This Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerability stems from the absence of anti-CSRF token validation in the users.php endpoint of CMSsite 1.0. The application fails to verify that state-changing requests originate from legitimate user sessions, allowing attackers to forge requests that execute administrative actions on behalf of authenticated users.

The vulnerable endpoint accepts several critical parameters that control user management functionality. When an attacker crafts a malicious HTML page containing hidden forms targeting the users.php endpoint, any authenticated administrator who visits this page will unknowingly submit requests that can add new administrator accounts (using source=add_user), modify existing user accounts (using source=edit_user), or delete users from the system (using del=1).

Root Cause

The root cause of CVE-2019-25682 is the missing implementation of CSRF protection mechanisms in the user management functionality of CMSsite. The users.php script processes POST requests without validating the origin of the request or checking for a unique session-bound token. This design flaw allows any HTTP request that reaches the endpoint with valid parameters to be processed, regardless of whether it was initiated by the legitimate user or an attacker.

Attack Vector

The attack vector for this vulnerability is network-based. An attacker exploits this vulnerability through a multi-stage attack:

1. The attacker creates a malicious webpage containing hidden HTML forms targeting the vulnerable users.php endpoint
2. The forms include parameters to create a new administrator account controlled by the attacker
3. The attacker lures an authenticated CMSsite administrator to visit the malicious page
4. Upon page load, JavaScript automatically submits the hidden form
5. The victim's browser sends the forged request with the victim's authenticated session cookies
6. CMSsite processes the request and creates the rogue administrator account

The attack requires no authentication from the attacker and can be executed remotely over the network. Technical details and proof-of-concept code are available in the Exploit-DB #46480 advisory.

Detection Methods for CVE-2019-25682

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected administrator accounts appearing in the CMSsite user database
• Audit logs showing user creation, modification, or deletion actions without corresponding legitimate administrator activity
• Referer headers in server logs showing POST requests to users.php originating from external domains

Detection Strategies

• Monitor web server access logs for POST requests to users.php with suspicious referer headers from external domains
• Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect CSRF attack patterns targeting user management endpoints
• Deploy SentinelOne Singularity to detect anomalous web application behavior and unauthorized account modifications

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable comprehensive logging for all administrative actions within CMSsite
• Configure alerts for new administrator account creation events
• Implement session monitoring to detect requests with mismatched origin/referer headers
• Review user management activity logs regularly for unauthorized changes

How to Mitigate CVE-2019-25682

Immediate Actions Required

• Audit all existing administrator accounts and remove any unauthorized or suspicious accounts
• Implement manual CSRF token validation for all state-changing operations in users.php
• Restrict access to the CMSsite administrative panel to trusted IP addresses or VPN connections
• Consider migrating to an actively maintained CMS solution with proper security controls

Patch Information

No official vendor patch is available for CMSsite 1.0. The project appears to be unmaintained. Organizations should consider implementing custom CSRF protections or migrating to a secure, actively maintained content management system. For more information, see the VulnCheck Security Advisory.

Workarounds

• Add CSRF token validation manually to the users.php file by generating unique tokens per session and validating them on each POST request
• Implement SameSite cookie attributes to prevent cross-origin request attacks
• Deploy a web application firewall (WAF) with CSRF protection rules enabled
• Require re-authentication for sensitive administrative actions like user creation or deletion

# Configuration example - Apache .htaccess to restrict admin access by IP
<Files "users.php">
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 192.168.1.0/24
    Allow from 10.0.0.0/8
</Files>