CVE-2025-13247: PHPGurukul Tourism Management SQL Injection

CVE-2025-13247 Overview

A SQL injection vulnerability has been discovered in PHPGurukul Tourism Management System version 1.0. The vulnerability exists in the /admin/user-bookings.php file, where improper handling of the uid parameter allows attackers to inject malicious SQL queries. This flaw can be exploited remotely without authentication, enabling unauthorized database access, data manipulation, and potential system compromise.

Critical Impact

Remote attackers can exploit this SQL injection vulnerability to extract sensitive user data, modify booking records, or potentially gain unauthorized access to the underlying database system.

Affected Products

• PHPGurukul Tourism Management System 1.0
• Specifically affects /admin/user-bookings.php endpoint
• All installations with default configurations are vulnerable

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-11-16 - CVE-2025-13247 published to NVD
• 2026-02-24 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-13247

Vulnerability Analysis

This SQL injection vulnerability occurs due to insufficient input validation in the user bookings management functionality of PHPGurukul Tourism Management System. The uid parameter passed to /admin/user-bookings.php is directly incorporated into SQL queries without proper sanitization or parameterization. This allows attackers to manipulate database queries by injecting malicious SQL code through the vulnerable parameter.

The vulnerability is classified under CWE-89 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command) and CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component). These weaknesses indicate that user-supplied input is not being properly escaped or validated before being used in database operations.

Root Cause

The root cause of this vulnerability is the lack of proper input sanitization and the use of unsanitized user input directly in SQL queries. The application fails to implement prepared statements or parameterized queries when processing the uid parameter, allowing special SQL characters and commands to be interpreted as part of the query structure rather than as data values.

Attack Vector

The attack can be initiated remotely over the network without requiring authentication. An attacker can craft malicious HTTP requests to the /admin/user-bookings.php endpoint, injecting SQL payloads through the uid parameter. This could enable extraction of sensitive information from the database, modification of existing records, or in severe cases, execution of administrative database operations.

The vulnerability has been publicly disclosed, and exploit details are available through the GitHub Issue Tracker. Additional technical details can be found in the VulDB entry #332581.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-13247

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual or malformed requests to /admin/user-bookings.php containing SQL syntax characters such as single quotes, double dashes, or UNION keywords
• Database error messages appearing in web server logs indicating SQL syntax errors
• Unexpected database queries or access patterns in database audit logs
• Anomalous network traffic patterns targeting the vulnerable endpoint

Detection Strategies

• Implement Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect SQL injection patterns in requests to /admin/user-bookings.php
• Monitor web server access logs for suspicious uid parameter values containing SQL keywords or special characters
• Enable database query logging and alert on queries containing unexpected UNION, SELECT, or DROP statements
• Deploy intrusion detection systems with signatures for common SQL injection attack patterns

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable verbose logging for the Tourism Management System application
• Configure database auditing to track all queries executed against user-related tables
• Set up real-time alerting for failed authentication attempts and database errors
• Regularly review access logs for patterns indicative of automated SQL injection scanning tools

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-13247

Immediate Actions Required

• Restrict network access to the /admin/ directory to trusted IP addresses only
• Implement input validation to reject any uid parameter values containing non-numeric characters
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall with SQL injection protection rules enabled
• Consider taking the application offline until a proper fix can be implemented

Patch Information

As of the last NVD update on 2026-02-24, no official patch has been released by PHPGurukul for this vulnerability. Administrators should monitor the PHP Gurukul Homepage for security updates. Given the public availability of exploit information, immediate implementation of workarounds is strongly recommended.

Workarounds

• Modify the source code of /admin/user-bookings.php to use prepared statements with parameterized queries for all database operations involving user input
• Add server-side input validation to ensure the uid parameter only accepts integer values
• Implement a Web Application Firewall to filter malicious SQL injection attempts
• Apply the principle of least privilege to database accounts used by the application

# Example Apache .htaccess configuration to restrict admin access
<Directory "/var/www/html/tourism/admin">
    # Restrict access to specific IP addresses
    Require ip 192.168.1.0/24
    Require ip 10.0.0.0/8
    
    # Block requests with common SQL injection patterns
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (\%27)|(\')|(\-\-)|(\%23)|(#) [NC,OR]
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (union|select|insert|drop|update|delete) [NC]
    RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</Directory>