CVE-2025-13270: School Fees Payment System SQLi Flaw

CVE-2025-13270 Overview

CVE-2025-13270 is a SQL injection vulnerability in Campcodes School Fees Payment Management System 1.0. The flaw exists in the /ajax.php?action=save_course endpoint, where the ID parameter is passed to a backend SQL query without proper sanitization. An authenticated remote attacker can manipulate the parameter to inject arbitrary SQL statements. The exploit details have been disclosed publicly, increasing the risk of opportunistic exploitation against exposed instances. The vulnerability is tracked under CWE-89 (SQL Injection) and CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output).

Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers can read, modify, or delete records in the application database by injecting SQL through the save_course action, exposing student and payment data.

Affected Products

Campcodes School Fees Payment Management System 1.0
CPE: cpe:2.3:a:campcodes:school_fees_payment_management_system:1.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Component: campcodes:school_fees_payment_management_system

Discovery Timeline

2025-11-17 - CVE-2025-13270 published to NVD
2026-04-29 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-13270

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in the save_course action handler within ajax.php. The script accepts an ID parameter from the HTTP request and concatenates it directly into a SQL statement used to insert or update course records. Because the input is not validated, escaped, or bound through a prepared statement, an attacker can break out of the intended query context and append arbitrary SQL clauses.

Exploitation requires low privileges, since the endpoint is reachable to any authenticated session within the application. The attack is launched over the network with low complexity and without user interaction. Successful injection can lead to disclosure of stored data, modification of course or payment records, and tampering with administrative information held by the system.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper neutralization of user-supplied input in a SQL query, classified under CWE-89. The save_course handler trusts the ID parameter without enforcing type checks or parameter binding, allowing SQL metacharacters to alter query structure.

Attack Vector

An authenticated attacker sends a crafted HTTP POST request to /ajax.php?action=save_course with a malicious payload in the ID field. Typical injection techniques include UNION-based queries to exfiltrate database contents, boolean-based blind injection to enumerate schema, and stacked queries to modify records. Public disclosure of the technique is referenced in the GitHub CVE Issue Discussion and VulDB #332605.

No verified proof-of-concept code is reproduced here. Refer to the VulDB CTI ID #332605 entry for technical details on the injection pattern.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-13270

Indicators of Compromise

HTTP requests to /ajax.php?action=save_course containing SQL metacharacters such as single quotes, UNION, SELECT, --, or /* in the ID parameter.
Web server or application logs showing repeated save_course requests from the same source within short time windows, consistent with blind SQL injection enumeration.
Unexpected database errors or HTTP 500 responses originating from the save_course handler.

Detection Strategies

Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules that inspect the ID parameter on the save_course action and block known SQL injection signatures.
Enable verbose query logging on the backend database and alert on syntactically anomalous queries originating from the application user.
Correlate authentication logs with ajax.php request bursts to identify low-privilege accounts attempting parameter tampering.

Monitoring Recommendations

Forward web server, PHP, and database logs to a centralized analytics platform for cross-source correlation.
Establish baseline traffic patterns for ajax.php endpoints and alert on deviations in request rate or payload entropy.
Monitor for unexpected schema reads against system tables such as information_schema.tables and information_schema.columns.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-13270

Immediate Actions Required

Restrict network access to the School Fees Payment Management System until a fix is applied, limiting exposure to trusted networks only.
Audit application accounts and disable or rotate credentials for any unused or low-trust users that can reach the save_course endpoint.
Review recent database activity for signs of unauthorized reads or modifications to course and payment tables.

Patch Information

No vendor patch has been published for Campcodes School Fees Payment Management System 1.0 at the time of CVE assignment. Monitor the CampCodes Security Blog and the GitHub CVE Issue Discussion for updates. Organizations maintaining the source code should refactor the save_course handler to use parameterized queries or prepared statements with bound parameters.

Workarounds

Place the application behind a WAF with rules that block SQL injection patterns in the ID parameter of /ajax.php?action=save_course.
Enforce server-side input validation that rejects non-numeric values for the ID field before any database interaction.
Apply least-privilege principles to the database account used by the application, removing DROP, ALTER, and write permissions where not strictly required.
Disable or remove the save_course action if it is not actively used in the deployment.

bash

# Example WAF rule (ModSecurity) to block SQLi on the save_course endpoint
SecRule REQUEST_URI "@contains /ajax.php" \
  "chain,phase:2,deny,status:403,id:1013270,msg:'CVE-2025-13270 SQLi attempt'"
  SecRule ARGS:action "@streq save_course" "chain"
  SecRule ARGS:ID "@rx (?i)(union|select|--|/\*|;|')" "t:none"