CVE-2024-23831

LedgerSMB is a free web-based double-entry accounting system. When a LedgerSMB database administrator has an active session in /setup.pl, an attacker can trick the admin into clicking on a link which automatically submits a request to setup.pl without the admins consent. This request can be used to create a new user account with full application (/login.pl) privileges, leading to privilege escalation. The vulnerability is patched in versions 1.10.30 and 1.11.9.

Weakness

The web application does not, or cannot, sufficiently verify whether a request was intentionally provided by the user who sent the request, which could have originated from an unauthorized actor.

Affected Software

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 [REF-1482].
• 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]

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/111.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/462.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/467.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/62.html

References

• https://github.com/ledgersmb/LedgerSMB/commit/8c2ae5be68a782d62cb9c0e17c0127bf30ef4165
• https://github.com/ledgersmb/LedgerSMB/security/advisories/GHSA-98ff-f638-qxjm
• https://github.com/ledgersmb/LedgerSMB/commit/8c2ae5be68a782d62cb9c0e17c0127bf30ef4165
• https://github.com/ledgersmb/LedgerSMB/security/advisories/GHSA-98ff-f638-qxjm