CVE-2025-3181: Doctor Appointment Booking System SQL Injection

CVE-2025-3181 Overview

A critical SQL injection vulnerability has been identified in Projectworlds Online Doctor Appointment Booking System version 1.0. The vulnerability exists in the /patient/appointment.php file, where the scheduleDate parameter is improperly handled, allowing attackers to inject malicious SQL queries. This flaw can be exploited remotely without authentication, potentially compromising the entire database containing sensitive patient and appointment information.

Critical Impact

Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this SQL injection vulnerability to extract, modify, or delete sensitive medical appointment data, patient records, and potentially gain unauthorized access to the underlying database server.

Affected Products

• Projectworlds Online Doctor Appointment Booking System (PHP and MySQL) version 1.0

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-04-03 - CVE-2025-3181 published to NVD
• 2025-04-15 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-3181

Vulnerability Analysis

This SQL injection vulnerability occurs in the patient appointment functionality of the Online Doctor Appointment Booking System. The application fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input in the scheduleDate parameter before incorporating it into SQL queries. This allows an attacker to break out of the intended query structure and execute arbitrary SQL commands against the backend MySQL database.

The vulnerable endpoint /patient/appointment.php accepts parameters including scheduleDate and appid. When a malicious payload is injected into the scheduleDate parameter, the application directly concatenates this input into SQL statements without proper validation, parameterization, or escaping, resulting in a classic SQL injection condition.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper input validation and the lack of parameterized queries (prepared statements) in the PHP application code. The scheduleDate parameter value is directly embedded into SQL query strings, violating secure coding practices for database interaction. This represents both CWE-89 (SQL Injection) and CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component).

Attack Vector

The attack can be launched remotely over the network without requiring any authentication or user interaction. An attacker simply needs to craft a malicious HTTP request to the vulnerable endpoint with a specially crafted scheduleDate parameter value. The exploit has been publicly disclosed, making it accessible to threat actors with basic SQL injection knowledge.

The attack targets the /patient/appointment.php?scheduleDate=1&appid=1 endpoint. By manipulating the scheduleDate parameter with SQL injection payloads, attackers can perform various malicious operations including:

• Extracting sensitive patient data and medical records
• Bypassing authentication mechanisms
• Modifying or deleting appointment records
• Potentially escalating to command execution depending on database configuration

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-3181

Indicators of Compromise

• Suspicious HTTP requests to /patient/appointment.php containing SQL syntax characters such as single quotes ('), double dashes (--), or UNION SELECT statements
• Unusual database query patterns or errors in application logs
• Unexpected data exfiltration or modifications to the appointment database
• Web server access logs showing enumeration attempts targeting the scheduleDate parameter

Detection Strategies

• Deploy Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block SQL injection patterns in request parameters
• Monitor database query logs for anomalous or malformed SQL statements
• Implement application-level logging to capture parameter values passed to /patient/appointment.php
• Enable database auditing to detect unauthorized SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE operations

Monitoring Recommendations

• Configure real-time alerting for SQL injection attack patterns in web traffic
• Monitor for database error messages being returned to users, which may indicate ongoing exploitation attempts
• Review access logs for high-frequency requests to the vulnerable endpoint from single IP addresses
• Track database account privilege escalation attempts or unusual stored procedure executions

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-3181

Immediate Actions Required

• Remove or disable public access to the /patient/appointment.php endpoint until a patch is available
• Implement input validation and sanitization for all user-supplied parameters
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall with SQL injection protection rules in front of the application
• Review database account permissions to ensure the application uses a least-privilege database account

Patch Information

No official vendor patch is currently available from Projectworlds for this vulnerability. Organizations using this software should apply workarounds immediately and monitor the GitHub CVE Issue Discussion and VulDB entry #303140 for updates on remediation guidance.

Workarounds

• Implement prepared statements (parameterized queries) in the application code to prevent SQL injection
• Apply strict input validation using allowlists for the scheduleDate parameter format
• Deploy network-level access controls to restrict access to the application to trusted IP ranges only
• Consider replacing the vulnerable application with a maintained and actively supported alternative

# Example: Restrict access to the vulnerable endpoint using Apache .htaccess
<Files "appointment.php">
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from all
    # Allow only trusted internal IPs
    Allow from 192.168.1.0/24
</Files>