CVE-2026-41874: Quick.Cart Privilege Escalation Flaw

CVE-2026-41874 Overview

CVE-2026-41874 affects Quick.Cart, an e-commerce shopping cart application developed by OpenSolution. The application stores hard-coded, plaintext administrator credentials inside a configuration file on the server. An attacker with local access to the file system can read these credentials and authenticate as an administrator, enabling privilege escalation within the application. The issue is classified as [CWE-256] Plaintext Storage of a Password. Only version 6.7 was tested, but the vendor and CERT Polska indicate that all versions should be considered vulnerable. The vendor assessed the likelihood of exploitation as very low and stated that a fix will not be issued.

Critical Impact
Local attackers who can read Quick.Cart configuration files can recover plaintext admin credentials and take over the application.

Affected Products

Quick.Cart 6.7 (confirmed tested)
All prior and later Quick.Cart versions (per vendor guidance)
OpenSolution Quick.Cart deployments across shared or multi-tenant hosting

Discovery Timeline

2026-07-28 - CVE-2026-41874 published to NVD
2026-07-30 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-41874

Vulnerability Analysis

Quick.Cart embeds administrator authentication material directly in a configuration file shipped with the application. The credentials are stored in plaintext, without hashing, salting, or encryption at rest. Any process, user, or attacker with read access to that file inherits the ability to authenticate as an administrator. This design deviates from standard credential-handling practice, where administrator secrets are stored using a one-way hashing algorithm and never checked into distribution files.

Because the credential material sits on disk rather than in the request path, exploitation does not require network reachability or user interaction. It requires only local access to the underlying file system, whether obtained through a compromised low-privileged web account, a co-tenant on shared hosting, a backup archive, or a separate file-disclosure vulnerability in another application on the same host.

Root Cause

The root cause is insecure credential storage, tracked as [CWE-256]. The application treats a configuration file as a trusted vault while granting it the same file-system exposure as ordinary application data. There is no separation between code, configuration, and secrets, and no protection layer between an attacker who reads the file and the authentication subsystem that trusts its contents.

Attack Vector

Exploitation is local. An attacker first obtains read access to the Quick.Cart installation directory. This can occur through a hosting account on the same server, a stolen backup, an unrelated Local File Inclusion flaw, or credentials to an FTP or SSH account with access to the web root. After reading the configuration file, the attacker extracts the administrator username and password and logs in to the Quick.Cart admin panel. From there, the attacker can modify store content, upload files, redirect payments, or pivot to further server-side code execution depending on admin functionality exposed by the deployment.

No verified public proof-of-concept is available. The vulnerability mechanism is documented in the CERT Polska security advisory.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-41874

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected administrator logins to the Quick.Cart admin panel from unfamiliar IP addresses or user agents.
Read access to Quick.Cart configuration files by processes or accounts that do not belong to the web server runtime.
Outbound copies of the Quick.Cart installation directory in FTP, SFTP, or web-server access logs.
Modification of Quick.Cart store settings, payment endpoints, or template files without a corresponding change ticket.

Detection Strategies

Audit the Quick.Cart configuration file for plaintext credentials and flag any read access outside the web server's service account.
Enable file-integrity monitoring on the Quick.Cart configuration directory and alert on read events from interactive shells.
Correlate admin-panel authentication events with source IP reputation and typical administrator geography.
Review web-server access logs for path-traversal, LFI, or backup-file access patterns targeting the Quick.Cart install path.

Monitoring Recommendations

Ingest web-server, FTP, and shell access logs into a central analytics pipeline and retain them long enough to reconstruct credential-theft sequences.
Alert on any new successful administrator authentication that follows a file read of the Quick.Cart configuration file within a short time window.
Track outbound data transfers from the web host that include the Quick.Cart directory tree.

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-41874

Immediate Actions Required

Rotate the Quick.Cart administrator password immediately and choose a value that is not reused elsewhere.
Restrict the Quick.Cart configuration file to the web server's service account and remove world-readable permissions.
Move the Quick.Cart installation off shared hosting where co-tenants can read the file system.
Place the admin panel behind IP allow-listing, VPN, or HTTP authentication to reduce the value of stolen credentials.

Patch Information

The vendor has stated that a fix will not be issued because it assesses the likelihood of exploitation as very low. No patched version of Quick.Cart is available at the time of this writing. Operators must treat this as a permanent configuration risk and apply compensating controls. Refer to the OpenSolution product page and the CERT Polska advisory for vendor and coordinator statements.

Workarounds

Tighten file-system permissions on the Quick.Cart configuration file so that only the web server user can read it.
Enforce multi-factor authentication or an external reverse-proxy authentication layer in front of the Quick.Cart admin panel.
Segregate Quick.Cart from other applications on the same host to prevent cross-application file disclosure.
Evaluate migration to an actively maintained e-commerce platform that hashes administrator credentials.

bash

# Configuration example: restrict Quick.Cart config file access on Linux
chown root:www-data /var/www/quickcart/_include/config.php
chmod 640 /var/www/quickcart/_include/config.php

# Verify no other users can read the file
find /var/www/quickcart -name 'config.php' -perm /o+r -print