1. OVERVIEW The Advanced Electron Forums (AEF) 1.0.9 <= versions are vulnerable to Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). 2. BACKGROUND AEF has a very simple and easy to use Administration Panel and installing this software is a piece of cake! You can install new themes, customize themes the way you want. The User Control Panel has a simple yet beautiful interface where users can set their preferences for the board. 3. VULNERABILITY DESCRIPTION Advanced Electron Forums (AEF) 1.0.9 <= versions contain a flaw that allows a remote Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF / XSRF) attack. The flaw exists because the application does not require multiple steps or explicit confirmation for sensitive transactions for majority of administrator functions such as adding new user, assigning user to administrative privilege. By using a crafted URL, an attacker may trick the victim into visiting to his web page to take advantage of the trust relationship between the authenticated victim and the application. Such an attack could trick the victim into executing arbitrary commands in the context of their session with the application, without further prompting or verification. 4. VERSIONS AFFECTED 1.0.9 <= 5. PROOF-OF-CONCEPT/EXPLOIT The following request ecalates a normal user to an administrator. [REQUEST] POST /aef/index.php?act=editprofile&uid=2 HTTP/1.1 username=tester&email=tester%40yehg.net&u_member_group=1&realname=&title=&location=&gender=1&privatetext=&icq=&yim=&msn=&aim=&www=&sig=&editprofile=Edit+Profile [/REQUEST] 6. SOLUTION Partial fix is available. The vendor released a single patch for the provided vulnerable EditProfile functionality. http://www.anelectron.com/downloads/index.php?act=downloadattach&atid=59 7. VENDOR Electron Inc. http://www.anelectron.com/ 8. CREDIT This vulnerability was discovered by Aung Khant, http://yehg.net, YGN Ethical Hacker Group, Myanmar. 9. DISCLOSURE TIME-LINE 2010-12-14: notified vendor through email, website contact form submission 2011-05-17: vendor released aef 1.0.9 without the CSRF fix 2011-09-06: vendor released separate patch about the CSRF fix 2011-09-26: vulnerability disclosed 10. REFERENCES Original Advisory URL: http://yehg.net/lab/pr0js/advisories/[aef-1.x]_cross_site_request_forgery CSRF Wiki: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery #yehg [2011-09-26]