Introduction: A recent security vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-24989, has been discovered in the popular content management system (CMS), Power Pages. This vulnerability allows an unauthorized attacker to elevate their privileges on a targeted system and potentially bypass the user registration control. Thankfully, the Power Pages team has already mitigated this issue in the latest update. This article will delve into the technical details behind CVE-2025-24989, covering the exploit details, code snippets, and original references.

Exploit Details: The core of this improper access control vulnerability lies in the user registration process. A flaw in the logic allows attackers to bypass the user registration control, opening the door for privilege escalation. By manipulating specific input parameters during the registration process, the attacker can create an account with admin or higher-level privileges, granting them access to user data, settings, and other sensitive information.

For instance, an attacker sends the following malformed request during the registration process

POST /register HTTP/1.1
Host: vulnerable-site.com
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 104

{
  "username": "attacker",
  "password": "password123",
  "email": "attacker@example.com",
  "privilege": "admin"
}

Due to the flawed logic in handling the input data, the "privilege" parameter was not properly sanitized, allowing the attacker to set admin privileges upon account creation.

// vulnerable register.php code
// ...
$new_privilege = $_POST['privilege'] ?? 'user';
$user->register($username, $password, $email, $new_privilege);
// ...

The mitigation introduced by Power Pages involves implementing an additional layer of input validation to ensure that only authorized, pre-defined privilege levels are considered for account creation:

// fixed register.php code
// ...
$new_privilege = (isset($_POST['privilege']) && in_array($_POST['privilege'], ['user', 'admin'], true)) ? $_POST['privilege'] : 'user';
$user->register($username, $password, $email, $new_privilege);
// ...

Original References

1. Link to Power Pages CVE announcement
2. Link to CVE-2025-24989 on the National Vulnerability Database

Affected Customers and Next Steps: The Power Pages team has acted swiftly to address this critical vulnerability, releasing a patch in their latest update. Affected customers have been notified and given instructions on how to review their sites for potential exploitation and clean-up methods.

If you have not been contacted by the Power Pages team, your installation is likely unaffected by this vulnerability. However, always ensure you are running the latest version to maintain a secure web presence. If you're unsure about your site's status, contact support for further assistance.

Timeline

Published on: 02/19/2025 23:15:15 UTC
Last modified on: 02/22/2025 02:00:01 UTC