CVE-2025-5365: Campcodes Hospital Management SQL Injection

CVE-2025-5365 Overview

A critical SQL injection vulnerability has been discovered in Campcodes Online Hospital Management System version 1.0. The vulnerability exists in the /admin/patient-search.php file, where insufficient input validation of the searchdata parameter allows attackers to inject malicious SQL queries. This flaw can be exploited remotely without authentication, potentially enabling unauthorized access to sensitive patient data, administrative credentials, and the underlying database.

Critical Impact

Remote attackers can exploit this SQL injection vulnerability to access, modify, or delete sensitive healthcare data including patient records and system credentials without requiring authentication.

Affected Products

• Campcodes Online Hospital Management System 1.0

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-05-31 - CVE-2025-5365 published to NVD
• 2025-06-03 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-5365

Vulnerability Analysis

This SQL injection vulnerability (CWE-89) arises from improper neutralization of special elements used in SQL commands. The vulnerable endpoint /admin/patient-search.php accepts user-supplied input through the searchdata parameter without proper sanitization or parameterized queries. When a user submits search data, the application directly concatenates this input into SQL queries, creating an injection point that attackers can exploit.

The vulnerability is classified under both CWE-89 (SQL Injection) and CWE-74 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component), indicating that the core issue is inadequate input handling that allows injection attacks. Given that this is a healthcare management system, successful exploitation could lead to exposure of protected health information (PHI), violating HIPAA compliance requirements.

Root Cause

The root cause of this vulnerability is the failure to implement proper input validation and parameterized queries in the patient search functionality. The searchdata parameter is likely being directly interpolated into SQL query strings rather than using prepared statements or stored procedures. This is a common vulnerability pattern in PHP web applications that rely on string concatenation for database queries.

Healthcare management systems handle extremely sensitive data, making this lack of input sanitization particularly dangerous. The absence of input validation allows special SQL characters and commands to be interpreted as part of the query logic rather than as literal data values.

Attack Vector

The attack can be initiated remotely over the network without requiring any authentication or user interaction. An attacker can craft malicious HTTP requests to the /admin/patient-search.php endpoint with specially crafted SQL syntax in the searchdata parameter.

Typical exploitation scenarios include:

• Data Exfiltration: Using UNION-based injection to extract patient records, login credentials, and other sensitive data
• Authentication Bypass: Manipulating queries to bypass login mechanisms and gain administrative access
• Data Manipulation: Modifying or deleting patient records and system configurations
• Privilege Escalation: Accessing database functions to read/write files or execute system commands depending on database configuration

The exploit has been publicly disclosed, making it accessible to threat actors. Additional technical details can be found in the GitHub CVE Issue Discussion and VulDB #310659.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-5365

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual or malformed requests to /admin/patient-search.php containing SQL syntax such as single quotes, double dashes, UNION SELECT, or OR 1=1 patterns
• Database error messages appearing in web server logs or application responses
• Unexpected database queries in SQL server logs, particularly those accessing multiple tables or using UNION operators
• Anomalous data access patterns showing bulk retrieval of patient records

Detection Strategies

• Deploy Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block SQL injection patterns targeting the searchdata parameter
• Implement database activity monitoring to alert on suspicious query patterns including UNION-based injections and time-based blind SQL injection attempts
• Configure intrusion detection systems (IDS) with signatures for common SQL injection attack payloads
• Enable detailed logging on the web server to capture full request parameters for forensic analysis

Monitoring Recommendations

• Monitor HTTP request logs for the /admin/patient-search.php endpoint, filtering for requests with suspicious characters or unusually long parameter values
• Set up alerts for database errors that may indicate failed injection attempts
• Implement real-time monitoring of database query execution times to detect time-based blind SQL injection attacks
• Review access logs for patterns of systematic enumeration or data extraction attempts

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-5365

Immediate Actions Required

• Restrict access to the /admin/patient-search.php endpoint using network-level controls until a patch is applied
• Implement a Web Application Firewall with SQL injection protection rules as an interim measure
• Review database user permissions and ensure the application uses least-privilege database accounts
• Enable database query logging to detect any exploitation attempts

Patch Information

No official patch information is currently available from the vendor. Organizations using Campcodes Online Hospital Management System should contact the vendor directly for remediation guidance. Monitor the Campcodes website for security updates.

In the absence of an official patch, consider implementing virtual patching through WAF rules or migrating to a more actively maintained hospital management solution.

Workarounds

• Implement input validation at the application level by sanitizing the searchdata parameter to allow only alphanumeric characters and expected special characters
• Deploy a reverse proxy or WAF configured to filter SQL injection patterns from incoming requests to the affected endpoint
• Restrict network access to the administrative interface (/admin/) to trusted IP addresses only
• Consider disabling the patient search functionality temporarily until proper security controls can be implemented

# Example Apache mod_security rule to block SQL injection attempts
SecRule ARGS:searchdata "@detectSQLi" \
    "id:1001,\
    phase:2,\
    deny,\
    status:403,\
    msg:'SQL Injection attempt detected in searchdata parameter',\
    log,\
    auditlog"