CVE-2025-10800: Emiloi Discussion Forum SQLi Vulnerability

CVE-2025-10800 Overview

A SQL Injection vulnerability has been identified in itsourcecode Online Discussion Forum version 1.0. The vulnerability exists in an unknown function within the /index.php file. By manipulating the email and password arguments, an attacker can inject malicious SQL commands. This attack can be executed remotely without authentication, and exploit details have been made publicly available, increasing the risk of exploitation in the wild.

Critical Impact

Unauthenticated remote attackers can exploit this SQL injection vulnerability to bypass authentication, extract sensitive database contents, or potentially modify data within the application's database.

Affected Products

• Emiloi Online Discussion Forum 1.0
• itsourcecode Online Discussion Forum 1.0

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-09-22 - CVE-2025-10800 published to NVD
• 2025-09-24 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-10800

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component - Injection). The application fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input in the email and password parameters before incorporating them into SQL queries. When authentication requests are processed through /index.php, the vulnerable code constructs SQL statements by directly concatenating user input, allowing attackers to inject arbitrary SQL syntax.

The vulnerability affects the login authentication mechanism, which is particularly dangerous as it provides a direct pathway for attackers to bypass authentication controls entirely or extract sensitive user data from the database.

Root Cause

The root cause stems from insufficient input validation and the lack of parameterized queries or prepared statements in the authentication logic. The application directly incorporates user-controlled data from the email and password form fields into SQL query strings without proper sanitization or escaping of special SQL characters.

Attack Vector

This vulnerability is exploitable over the network without requiring authentication or user interaction. An attacker can craft malicious HTTP requests to the /index.php endpoint containing SQL injection payloads within the email or password parameters. Common exploitation techniques include authentication bypass using payloads like ' OR '1'='1 in the login fields, or extracting database contents using UNION-based or blind SQL injection techniques.

The vulnerability is publicly documented in security research repositories, with technical details available in GitHub Issue #14 and GitHub Issue #15. Additional vulnerability tracking information can be found at VulDB #325157.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-10800

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual or malformed HTTP POST requests to /index.php containing SQL syntax characters such as single quotes, double dashes, semicolons, or UNION keywords in the email or password fields
• Web server logs showing repeated authentication attempts with abnormal input patterns
• Database query logs revealing malformed or suspicious SQL statements originating from the authentication module
• Unexpected database access patterns or data extraction queries from the forum application

Detection Strategies

• Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block common SQL injection patterns in HTTP request parameters
• Enable and monitor web server access logs for suspicious requests targeting /index.php with injection payloads
• Implement database query logging and alerting for malformed SQL statements or syntax errors
• Use intrusion detection systems (IDS) with signatures for SQL injection attack patterns

Monitoring Recommendations

• Configure real-time alerting for authentication failures accompanied by SQL error messages
• Monitor database connections for unusual query patterns or unauthorized data access attempts
• Implement application-level logging to capture and flag requests containing known injection character sequences
• Review authentication logs regularly for patterns indicating brute-force or injection attempts

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-10800

Immediate Actions Required

• Remove the vulnerable Online Discussion Forum application from internet-facing environments until patched
• Implement web application firewall rules to filter requests containing SQL injection payloads targeting /index.php
• Review database access logs for any signs of prior exploitation
• Consider network segmentation to limit exposure of systems running the vulnerable application

Patch Information

As of the last NVD update on 2025-09-24, no official vendor patch has been released for this vulnerability. System administrators should monitor the IT Source Code website for security updates. Given this is an open-source project, organizations should consider implementing code-level fixes using parameterized queries.

Workarounds

• Deploy a reverse proxy or WAF with SQL injection filtering capabilities in front of the application
• Manually modify the source code to implement prepared statements with parameterized queries for the authentication function
• Restrict access to the application to trusted networks only using firewall rules
• Disable the affected application and use an alternative forum solution until a patch is available

# Example WAF rule for ModSecurity to block SQL injection attempts
SecRule ARGS:email "@detectSQLi" \
    "id:1001,\
    phase:2,\
    deny,\
    status:403,\
    msg:'SQL Injection attempt detected in email parameter',\
    log"

SecRule ARGS:password "@detectSQLi" \
    "id:1002,\
    phase:2,\
    deny,\
    status:403,\
    msg:'SQL Injection attempt detected in password parameter',\
    log"