Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2018-10362: Phpliteadmin: Improper Authentication

CVE-2018-10362 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Phpliteadmin. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

An issue was discovered in phpLiteAdmin 1.9.5 through 1.9.7.1. Due to loose comparison with '==' instead of '===' in classes/Authorization.php for the user-provided login password, it is possible to login with a simpler password if the password has the form of a power in scientific notation (like '2e2' for '200' or '0e1234' for '0'). This is possible because, in the loose comparison case, PHP interprets the string as a number in scientific notation, and thus converts it to a number. After that, the comparison with '==' casts the user input (e.g., the string '200' or '0') to a number, too. Hence the attacker can login with just a '0' or a simple number he has to brute force. Strong comparison with '===' prevents the cast into numbers.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 9.8: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

  • Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
  • Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
  • Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
  • User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
  • Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
  • Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
  • Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-287: Improper Authentication

When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.

Affected products

  • Phpliteadmin: from 1.9.5 up to and including 1.9.7.1

References