CVE-2025-70062: Hospital Management System CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2025-70062 Overview

PHPGurukul Hospital Management System v4.0 contains a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the 'Add Doctor' module. The application fails to enforce CSRF token validation on the add-doctor.php endpoint. This allows remote attackers to create arbitrary Doctor accounts (privileged users) by tricking an authenticated administrator into visiting a malicious page.

Critical Impact
Attackers can create unauthorized privileged Doctor accounts by exploiting the missing CSRF protection, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive patient data and administrative functions within the hospital management system.

Affected Products

PHPGurukul Hospital Management System v4.0

Discovery Timeline

2026-02-18 - CVE-2025-70062 published to NVD
2026-02-19 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-70062

Vulnerability Analysis

This Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability exists in the PHPGurukul Hospital Management System due to the absence of anti-CSRF token validation on the add-doctor.php endpoint. When an authenticated administrator is logged into the system, an attacker can craft a malicious webpage containing a forged HTTP request that targets the Add Doctor functionality. If the administrator visits this malicious page while their session is active, the browser automatically includes their session credentials, causing the forged request to execute with administrative privileges.

The vulnerability is classified under CWE-352 (Cross-Site Request Forgery). The attack requires user interaction—specifically, the administrator must be tricked into visiting a malicious page while authenticated. However, no prior privileges or authentication on the target system are required by the attacker to initiate the attack.

Root Cause

The root cause of this vulnerability is the failure to implement proper CSRF token validation in the add-doctor.php endpoint. The application does not generate, embed, or validate unique anti-CSRF tokens in form submissions, allowing state-changing requests to be forged from external sources. Modern web application security standards require that all state-changing operations include a cryptographically random token that is validated server-side to prevent such attacks.

Attack Vector

The attack is network-based and requires the attacker to craft a malicious HTML page containing a form or JavaScript that automatically submits a request to the vulnerable add-doctor.php endpoint. The attacker must then social engineer an authenticated administrator into visiting this malicious page. When the administrator's browser loads the page, it automatically sends the forged request along with the administrator's valid session cookies, causing the Hospital Management System to process the request as if it were legitimately initiated by the administrator.

The malicious page could be hosted on any external website, sent via phishing email, or embedded in a compromised legitimate site. Upon successful exploitation, a new Doctor account with elevated privileges is created in the system without the administrator's knowledge or consent.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-70062

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected Doctor accounts appearing in the Hospital Management System user database
Administrator access logs showing account creation requests originating from unusual referrer URLs or external domains
Web server logs indicating POST requests to add-doctor.php with referrer headers pointing to external websites

Detection Strategies

Monitor web application logs for POST requests to add-doctor.php that originate from referrers outside the trusted domain
Implement alerting for any new Doctor account creation events and validate them against authorized administrative actions
Deploy Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block requests lacking proper origin validation

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable detailed logging for all administrative functions, particularly user account management endpoints
Configure security information and event management (SIEM) alerts for unusual patterns in account creation activity
Regularly audit the user database for unauthorized or unexpected privileged accounts

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-70062

Immediate Actions Required

Review and audit all existing Doctor accounts in the system to identify any unauthorized entries
Implement CSRF token validation on the add-doctor.php endpoint and all other state-changing forms
Consider restricting administrative access to trusted networks or requiring additional authentication factors for sensitive operations
Educate administrators about phishing risks and the importance of not clicking untrusted links while logged into administrative interfaces

Patch Information

No official vendor patch has been identified at this time. Administrators should apply manual mitigations or consider implementing custom CSRF protection. Technical details and proof-of-concept information are available through the external references:

Workarounds

Implement custom CSRF token generation and validation on all form submissions in the application
Configure the web server to validate the Origin and Referer headers for administrative endpoints
Use the SameSite=Strict cookie attribute to prevent session cookies from being sent with cross-site requests
Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with CSRF protection rules enabled

bash

# Example: Setting SameSite cookie attribute in PHP configuration
# Add to php.ini or application configuration
session.cookie_samesite = "Strict"