CVE-2024-7169: School Fees Payment System CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2024-7169 Overview

CVE-2024-7169 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability [CWE-352] in SourceCodester School Fees Payment System 1.0, developed by oretnom23. The flaw resides in an unspecified function of the /ajax.php file. An attacker can craft a malicious web page that, when visited by an authenticated user, triggers unintended state-changing requests against the application. The attack is exploitable remotely and requires no privileges, though it depends on user interaction with attacker-controlled content. The exploit has been publicly disclosed under the identifier VDB-272583.

Critical Impact
Remote attackers can perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users by tricking them into loading a malicious page, potentially modifying payment records or administrative settings.

Affected Products

SourceCodester School Fees Payment System 1.0
Vendor: oretnom23
CPE: cpe:2.3:a:oretnom23:school_fees_payment_system:1.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Discovery Timeline

2024-07-28 - CVE-2024-7169 published to NVD
2024-11-21 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-7169

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a Cross-Site Request Forgery weakness in the /ajax.php endpoint of the School Fees Payment System. The application processes state-changing requests without verifying that the request originates from a legitimate user-driven action within the application itself. Because the endpoint accepts requests using only session cookies for authentication, a browser automatically attaches valid credentials to any request issued from an attacker-controlled origin. This permits an attacker to forge requests that the server processes as if the victim had intentionally submitted them.

The issue maps to [CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery]. The integrity impact is limited but real: attackers can manipulate data accessible to the victim's account, while confidentiality and availability remain unaffected according to the published CVSS metrics.

Root Cause

The root cause is the absence of anti-CSRF protections on the /ajax.php handler. The application does not enforce synchronizer tokens, double-submit cookies, or SameSite cookie attributes that would bind requests to a legitimate session context. Without origin validation or token verification, the server cannot distinguish between requests issued by the application's own UI and requests forged from an external site.

Attack Vector

Exploitation is network-based and requires no authentication on the attacker's part. The attacker hosts a malicious HTML page containing an auto-submitting form or JavaScript-based POST request targeting /ajax.php on a vulnerable installation. When a logged-in administrator or user visits the page, the browser issues the forged request with the user's session cookies attached. The server processes the request as legitimate. A public proof-of-concept is available via GitHub Gist PoC Code and VulDB #272583.

No verified code examples are provided. See the linked references for technical details of the proof-of-concept payload.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-7169

Indicators of Compromise

HTTP POST or GET requests to /ajax.php containing a Referer or Origin header pointing to an external, untrusted domain.
Unexpected modifications to payment records, user accounts, or administrative configuration that correlate with administrator browsing activity.
Multiple state-changing requests to /ajax.php issued from a single session within an unusually short timeframe.

Detection Strategies

Inspect web server access logs for requests to /ajax.php where the Referer header is missing or does not match the application's own hostname.
Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules that flag cross-origin POST requests lacking valid CSRF tokens.
Correlate administrator session activity with browser history or proxy logs to identify forged request patterns.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable verbose audit logging within the School Fees Payment System and forward logs to a centralized analytics platform.
Alert on anomalous spikes in write operations against /ajax.php, especially outside normal business hours.
Monitor outbound network connections from administrator workstations to flag interaction with phishing or attacker-controlled domains.

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-7169

Immediate Actions Required

Restrict access to the School Fees Payment System to trusted internal networks or behind a VPN until a vendor patch is applied.
Instruct administrators to log out of the application before browsing untrusted websites and to use a dedicated browser profile for administrative tasks.
Deploy a WAF rule that rejects requests to /ajax.php lacking a valid Origin or Referer header matching the application's domain.

Patch Information

No official vendor patch has been published in the NVD references at the time of writing. Administrators should monitor the SourceCodester project page and vendor channels for an updated release. Until a patch is available, mitigations must be applied at the network and browser layer.

Workarounds

Configure session cookies with the SameSite=Strict attribute via reverse proxy or PHP configuration to prevent cross-site cookie transmission.
Implement an anti-CSRF token mechanism in a custom middleware or reverse proxy layer that validates a server-issued token on every request to /ajax.php.
Apply browser-side protections such as enforcing strict site isolation policies for administrator workstations.

bash

# Example PHP session configuration to enforce SameSite cookies
# Add to php.ini or set at runtime before session_start()
session.cookie_samesite = "Strict"
session.cookie_secure = 1
session.cookie_httponly = 1