CVE-2025-12857: Fabian Hotel Site SQLi Vulnerability

CVE-2025-12857 Overview

A SQL injection vulnerability has been identified in code-projects Responsive Hotel Site version 1.0. The vulnerability affects an unspecified function within the /admin/roombook.php file. By manipulating the rid argument, attackers can inject malicious SQL statements to compromise the database. This attack can be executed remotely, and exploit details have been publicly disclosed.

Critical Impact

Authenticated attackers with administrative privileges can exploit this SQL injection flaw to read, modify, or delete sensitive database records, potentially compromising guest information, booking data, and administrative credentials.

Affected Products

• Fabian Responsive Hotel Site 1.0

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-11-07 - CVE-2025-12857 published to NVD
• 2025-11-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-12857

Vulnerability Analysis

This SQL injection vulnerability exists within the administrative room booking functionality of the Responsive Hotel Site application. The rid parameter in /admin/roombook.php fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input before incorporating it into SQL queries. When an authenticated administrator manipulates this parameter, malicious SQL code can be injected and executed against the backend database.

The vulnerability is classified under CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component), which encompasses injection flaws where untrusted input is not properly validated before being processed by an interpreter.

Root Cause

The root cause of this vulnerability is insufficient input validation and lack of parameterized queries in the roombook.php administrative endpoint. The rid parameter is directly concatenated into SQL statements without proper sanitization, escaping, or the use of prepared statements. This allows specially crafted input to break out of the intended SQL context and execute arbitrary database commands.

Attack Vector

This vulnerability is exploitable over the network by an authenticated user with administrative privileges. The attacker must have valid admin credentials to access the /admin/roombook.php endpoint. Once authenticated, the attacker can manipulate the rid parameter in HTTP requests to inject SQL commands.

The attack flow involves:

1. Authentication to the administrative panel
2. Navigation to the room booking management functionality
3. Injection of malicious SQL syntax through the rid parameter
4. Execution of unauthorized database operations

Exploitation details and a proof-of-concept report are available in the GitHub CVE Report maintained by the security researcher who discovered this vulnerability.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-12857

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual SQL error messages appearing in application or web server logs from /admin/roombook.php
• Anomalous database query patterns containing SQL metacharacters (', ", --, OR 1=1, UNION SELECT) in the rid parameter
• Unexpected administrative access patterns or authentication attempts to the hotel booking admin panel
• Database audit logs showing unauthorized data access, modification, or extraction activities

Detection Strategies

• Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block SQL injection patterns targeting the rid parameter
• Implement application-level logging for all requests to /admin/roombook.php with parameter inspection
• Configure database activity monitoring to alert on unusual query structures or mass data access patterns
• Enable SentinelOne Singularity to monitor for post-exploitation behaviors following successful SQL injection

Monitoring Recommendations

• Review web server access logs regularly for suspicious requests to /admin/roombook.php containing encoded or malformed rid values
• Monitor database server performance metrics for indicators of data exfiltration or enumeration attacks
• Set up alerts for failed administrative login attempts that may indicate credential harvesting following SQL injection
• Audit database user privilege escalation attempts and schema modification operations

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-12857

Immediate Actions Required

• Restrict network access to the /admin/ directory to trusted IP addresses only using firewall rules or web server configuration
• Implement strong input validation on the rid parameter, accepting only numeric values
• Review and audit all administrative user accounts for unauthorized access or compromised credentials
• Consider taking the vulnerable booking management functionality offline until a patch is applied

Patch Information

No official vendor patch has been identified for this vulnerability at the time of publication. The affected software, Responsive Hotel Site 1.0, is a code-projects demonstration application. Organizations using this software in production environments should implement the workarounds below or consider migrating to a supported, actively maintained booking system.

For additional technical details, refer to the VulDB entry #331503 which tracks this vulnerability.

Workarounds

• Implement prepared statements with parameterized queries by modifying the roombook.php source code to use PDO or MySQLi prepared statements
• Add server-side input validation to ensure the rid parameter contains only expected numeric values
• Deploy a web application firewall (WAF) with SQL injection rule sets enabled to filter malicious requests
• Restrict administrative panel access via IP whitelisting at the web server or network firewall level
• Enable database query logging and regular security audits to detect exploitation attempts

# Apache .htaccess configuration to restrict admin access by IP
# Place in /admin/ directory
<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
    Require ip 192.168.1.0/24
    Require ip 10.0.0.0/8
</IfModule>

# Alternatively, for older Apache versions
<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 192.168.1.0/24
    Allow from 10.0.0.0/8
</IfModule>