A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the popular Movie Ticket Booking System, which could potentially be exploited by malicious actors to compromise and manipulate user data. This vulnerability, officially designated as CVE-2022-4248, is related to improper handling of input in the editBooking.php file, leading to SQL injection. The issue has been assigned VDB-214625 identifier and has been deemed critical due to the potential consequences if successfully exploited. This article aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the exploit, including details on how it can be mitigated, along with proper credit and references to original researchers.

Code Snippet

The vulnerability lies in the improper handling of the 'id' argument in the file 'editBooking.php'. The affected function can be seen in the code snippet below:

// editBooking.php
$id = $_GET['id'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM bookings WHERE id = '$id'";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

In this snippet, user input is taken directly from the 'id' parameter and is used to construct an SQL query without proper validation or sanitization. This behavior leaves the system vulnerable to SQL injection attacks.

Exploit Details

A potential attacker can exploit the vulnerability by crafting malicious requests which manipulate the 'id' parameter in the URL, allowing them to inject and execute arbitrary SQL code. A simple example of such a request might look like:

http://example.com/editBooking.php?id='; OR 1=1 --

This request would result in an SQL query being executed that effectively bypasses any intended access controls, granting the attacker unauthorized access to sensitive data stored in the 'bookings' table.

Mitigation

To protect against this vulnerability, developers should ensure that all user-supplied input is properly validated and sanitized before being used in SQL queries. In the case of the vulnerable code snippet shown above, the use of prepared statements or parameterized queries can help prevent SQL injection attacks. For example:

// editBooking.php
$id = $_GET['id'];
$stmt = $conn->prepare('SELECT * FROM bookings WHERE id = ?');
$stmt->bind_param('i', $id);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();

By utilizing prepared statements, the SQL query is constructed independently of the user-supplied input, significantly reducing the risk of SQL injection.

More details about the vulnerability can be found in the following resources

- CVE-2022-4248 Official Record
- VDB-214625 Vulnerability Disclosure

Conclusion

The CVE-2022-4248 vulnerability poses a significant risk to the Movie Ticket Booking System, as it can be easily exploited to compromise sensitive user data. Developers are urged to implement proper input validation and sanitization measures, such as prepared statements, to mitigate this vulnerability. Users of the affected system should update their software as soon as a patch is available to ensure the security of their data.

Timeline

Published on: 12/01/2022 08:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 12/02/2022 18:26:00 UTC