Description

A security flaw has been discovered in SourceCodester Syllabus-Aligned Learning Management & Examination System 1.0. This impacts an unknown function. Performing a manipulation results in cross-site request forgery. The attack can be initiated remotely. The exploit has been released to the public and may be used for attacks.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "4.3",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-07T08:17:14.380Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-07T08:17:14.380Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability has been identified in version 1.0 of the SourceCodester Syllabus-Aligned Learning Management & Examination System. This security flaw allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to force an authenticated user to perform unintended actions within the application without their consent.\nThe vulnerability stems from the absence of CSRF tokens or equivalent anti-forgery mechanisms within the application's request handling processes. Consequently, the application fails to distinguish between legitimate user-initiated requests and malicious requests forged by an external party.\nThe impact of this vulnerability is significant, as successful exploitation enables attackers to execute critical administrative or user-level functions—such as modifying account settings, changing passwords, or manipulating system data—under the guise of the victim. Because the exploit is publicly available, the risk to deployments of this system is elevated. Exploitation requires the attacker to entice an authenticated user into clicking a malicious link or visiting a compromised website, thereby triggering the forged request in the context of the user's active session.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides in the application's request handling logic, which lacks sufficient validation to verify the origin and intent of incoming state-changing HTTP requests. The root cause is the failure to implement cryptographic nonces or anti-CSRF tokens for sensitive operations. By design, browsers automatically include session cookies with every request sent to a domain, and the target application fails to validate the request origin, relying solely on these cookies to authorize the request.\nThe attack flow begins when an attacker identifies a sensitive function within the Syllabus-Aligned Learning Management & Examination System that performs a state-changing operation via a predictable URL. Once the target function is identified, the attacker crafts a malicious request—typically embedded within an HTML page as an invisible form submission or an <img>/<iframe> tag trigger—configured to perform the undesired action.\nThe attacker then distributes this malicious payload to a user who maintains an active administrative or privileged session with the application. When the victim accesses the attacker-controlled resource, their browser executes the hidden request. Because the browser automatically attaches the victim's authentication credentials (session cookies) to the request, the server processes the forged operation as a legitimate instruction from the authenticated user.\nDue to the public availability of exploit material, the barrier to entry for this attack is minimal. The exploitation occurs over the network and does not require the attacker to bypass authentication protocols directly, as they leverage the victim's already established session. Post-exploitation impact varies depending on the function targeted; however, potential consequences include full administrative account takeover, unauthorized data modification, or the deletion of critical examination records.\nThe vulnerable component is the application's request processing layer, which currently assumes that all incoming requests containing valid session cookies are authorized. There is no evidence of secondary verification mechanisms, such as re-authentication requirements for sensitive modifications or the implementation of SameSite cookie attributes, which could otherwise mitigate the impact of this flaw."
}