CVE-2023-5498: A Deep Dive into Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Exploit in GitHub Repository ChiefOnboarding/ChiefOnboarding Prior to v2..47

The cybersecurity world is marked by continuous discoveries of new vulnerabilities in software systems that could potentially put data privacy and integrity at risk. One such vulnerability was recently discovered in the GitHub repository, chiefonboarding/chiefonboarding, that concerned a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) and has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2023-5498. Here, we're going to discuss the details of this exploit and the remediation procedure applied to mitigate it.

GitHub Repository: chiefonboarding/chiefonboarding

What is Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)?

Cross-Site Request Forgery, or CSRF, is a type of attack that occurs when a malicious website, email, or any other communication medium, tricks an authenticated user into performing actions, which they did not intend to, on a trusted website. This usually happens when the user is legitimately logged into the targeted website and unknowingly executes malicious requests sent by the attacker.

For a basic understanding of CSRF, please refer to the OWASP guide: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Vulnerability Details: CVE-2023-5498

CVE-2023-5498 refers to a CSRF vulnerability found in the chiefonboarding/chiefonboarding GitHub repository before version 2..47. The open-source project's goal is to provide an employee onboarding platform for businesses. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to forge requests on behalf of legitimate users and perform unauthorized actions within the system.

The vulnerability specifically impacts the application's user account settings. An attacker could exploit this by crafting a malicious link and inducing an authenticated user to click on it. Once the user clicks the link, the attacker's crafted request would be executed in the context of the logged-in user, thereby changing the user's settings without their knowledge or consent.

To put this in perspective, let's consider a simplistic code snippet that could potentially be exploited:

from flask import Flask, request, url_for
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/update_user_settings', methods=['POST'])
def update_user_settings():
    # Just an example, this could include any sensitive account detail
    new_email = request.form['email']
    update_email_in_db(new_email)
    return "User settings updated successfully."

In addition to this, assume that the application does not implement CSRF protection, such as using CSRF tokens. The attacker could then craft a malicious link or a webpage with an embedded POST request, like the following:

<form action="https://victim.example.com/update_user_settings"; method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="email" value="attacker@evil.com"/>
  <button type="submit">Click here for a free gift!</button>
</form>

Once the victim clicks the submit button, their email address will be changed to the attacker's email without their knowledge.

How to Remediate the Vulnerability

To fix the vulnerability, the developers of the project released version 2..47, which implemented a CSRF protection mechanism, thereby eliminating the exploit. It is recommended that users of chiefonboarding/chiefonboarding update their software to version 2..47 or higher to protect their systems.

GitHub Repository: chiefonboarding/chiefonboarding v2..47

For more information about CSRF protection, please refer to the OWASP guide: CSRF Prevention

Conclusion

CSRF vulnerabilities are a security risk that developers should always be vigilant about, including using secure coding practices and employing best-practice security measures. Users of affected software should update their software to the most recent version with appropriate fixes to eliminate the risk of CSRF exploitation.

In the case of CVE-2023-5498, the vulnerability affected the chiefonboarding/chiefonboarding GitHub repository, but thanks to the developers' quick response, a patch was provided with the release of version 2..47. Update to this version immediately to secure your implementation from this CSRF exploit.

Timeline

Published on: 10/10/2023 10:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 10/13/2023 12:54:00 UTC