CVE-2024-5516: Blood Bank Management System SQL Injection

CVE-2024-5516 Overview

CVE-2024-5516 is a SQL injection vulnerability in itsourcecode Online Blood Bank Management System 1.0. The flaw resides in the massage.php file, where the bid parameter is passed to a backend SQL query without proper sanitization. An authenticated remote attacker can manipulate the bid argument to inject arbitrary SQL statements. The exploit details have been publicly disclosed under VulDB identifier VDB-266587, increasing the risk of opportunistic exploitation. The weakness is categorized under CWE-89, Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command.

Critical Impact

Attackers can read, modify, or destroy sensitive blood donor and patient records stored in the underlying database through crafted HTTP requests against massage.php.

Affected Products

• Adonesevangelista Online Blood Bank Management System 1.0
• itsourcecode Online Blood Bank Management System 1.0 (massage.php component)
• Deployments using CPE cpe:2.3:a:adonesevangelista:online_blood_bank_management_system:1.0

Discovery Timeline

• 2024-05-30 - CVE-2024-5516 published to NVD
• 2025-02-11 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-5516

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a SQL injection flaw triggered through the bid parameter handled by massage.php. The application concatenates user-controlled input into a SQL statement without parameterized queries or input validation. As a result, an attacker can break out of the original query and append arbitrary SQL clauses. The exploit has been publicly disclosed, lowering the barrier for unsophisticated attackers to weaponize the issue.

Successful exploitation impacts confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the underlying database. Because Online Blood Bank Management System handles personally identifiable information and medical data, exploitation carries regulatory and patient-safety consequences. The attacker requires only low-privilege authenticated access, which is typically obtainable through the system's self-registration features. The EPSS score reflects current public exploitation likelihood data tracked by FIRST.org.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper neutralization of special characters within the bid request parameter processed by massage.php. The application directly interpolates the parameter value into a SQL query, allowing meta-characters such as single quotes, comments, and UNION clauses to alter query semantics.

Attack Vector

The attack vector is network-based over HTTP/HTTPS. An attacker submits a crafted request to the massage.php endpoint with a malicious value in the bid parameter. No user interaction is required. Authentication with low privileges is needed, but the application's open registration model effectively negates that barrier. Exploitation can be automated using standard tools such as sqlmap against the vulnerable endpoint.

The vulnerability mechanism is described in the public disclosure referenced in the GitHub Issue Tracker Entry and the VulDB #266587 record. No verified proof-of-concept code is included here.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-5516

Indicators of Compromise

• HTTP requests to massage.php containing SQL meta-characters in the bid parameter, such as ', --, UNION SELECT, OR 1=1, or hex-encoded payloads.
• Database error messages returned to clients referencing MySQL syntax errors originating from massage.php.
• Unusual outbound database queries returning large result sets or accessing tables outside the application's normal access pattern.
• Web server access logs showing automated scanning patterns consistent with sqlmap user-agents targeting the bid parameter.

Detection Strategies

• Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules that inspect the bid parameter for SQL injection signatures.
• Enable database query logging and alert on queries originating from the application that contain UNION, INFORMATION_SCHEMA, or comment sequences.
• Correlate authentication events with subsequent anomalous query volume from the same session identifier.
• Run authenticated vulnerability scans against the massage.php endpoint using sqlmap or equivalent tooling in a controlled test environment.

Monitoring Recommendations

• Forward web server, application, and database logs to a centralized analytics platform for correlation and retention.
• Alert on HTTP 500 responses from massage.php that coincide with parameter tampering patterns.
• Track database user account activity for unexpected schema enumeration or mysql.user access.
• Monitor for data exfiltration patterns, including large response payloads from PHP endpoints.

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-5516

Immediate Actions Required

• Restrict network access to the Online Blood Bank Management System using firewall rules or a reverse proxy until a fix is available.
• Disable or restrict access to the massage.php endpoint where operationally feasible.
• Audit existing application accounts and disable self-registration to limit the pool of potential attackers.
• Review database and web server logs for prior exploitation attempts dating back to public disclosure.

Patch Information

No vendor patch is currently listed in the NVD record for CVE-2024-5516. Organizations running Adonesevangelista Online Blood Bank Management System 1.0 should monitor the GitHub Issue Tracker Entry and VulDB #266587 for updates. If no upstream fix is forthcoming, replace prone queries with parameterized statements using PHP PDO or mysqli prepared statements.

Workarounds

• Implement a WAF rule that blocks requests to massage.php containing SQL meta-characters in the bid parameter.
• Apply server-side input validation to enforce that bid accepts only numeric values, rejecting any non-digit input.
• Refactor the SQL query in massage.php to use parameterized statements with bound parameters rather than string concatenation.
• Restrict the database account used by the application to least-privilege permissions, removing DROP, ALTER, and cross-schema access.

# Example ModSecurity rule to block SQL injection attempts against the bid parameter
SecRule ARGS:bid "!@rx ^[0-9]+$" \
    "id:1005516,\
    phase:2,\
    deny,\
    status:403,\
    msg:'CVE-2024-5516: Non-numeric value in bid parameter blocked',\
    tag:'attack-sqli'"