Symfony is a PHP framework for web and console applications and a set of reusable PHP components. The Symfony form component provides a CSRF protection mechanism by using a random token injected in the form and using the session to store and control the token submitted by the user. When using the FrameworkBundle, this protection can be enabled or disabled with the configuration. If the configuration is not specified, by default, the mechanism is enabled as long as the session is enabled. In a recent change in the way the configuration is loaded, the default behavior has been dropped and, as a result, the CSRF protection is not enabled in form when not explicitly enabled, which makes the application sensible to CSRF attacks. This issue has been resolved in the patch versions listed and users are advised to update. There are no known workarounds for this issue.
Weakness
The web application does not, or can not, sufficiently verify whether a well-formed, valid, consistent request was intentionally provided by the user who submitted the request.
Affected Software
| Name |
Vendor |
Start Version |
End Version |
| Symfony |
Sensiolabs |
* |
5.3.15 (excluding) |
| Symfony |
Sensiolabs |
5.4.0 (including) |
5.4.4 (excluding) |
| Symfony |
Sensiolabs |
6.0.0 (including) |
6.0.4 (excluding) |
Potential Mitigations
- Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
- For example, use anti-CSRF packages such as the OWASP CSRFGuard. [REF-330]
- Another example is the ESAPI Session Management control, which includes a component for CSRF. [REF-45]
- Use the “double-submitted cookie” method as described by Felten and Zeller:
- When a user visits a site, the site should generate a pseudorandom value and set it as a cookie on the user’s machine. The site should require every form submission to include this value as a form value and also as a cookie value. When a POST request is sent to the site, the request should only be considered valid if the form value and the cookie value are the same.
- Because of the same-origin policy, an attacker cannot read or modify the value stored in the cookie. To successfully submit a form on behalf of the user, the attacker would have to correctly guess the pseudorandom value. If the pseudorandom value is cryptographically strong, this will be prohibitively difficult.
- This technique requires Javascript, so it may not work for browsers that have Javascript disabled. [REF-331]
References