Advisory ID: HTB23148
Product: Symphony
Vendor: http://getsymphony.com/
Vulnerable Version(s): 2.3.1 and probably prior
Tested Version: 2.3.1
Vendor Notification: March 13, 2013 
Vendor Patch: March 24, 2013 
Public Disclosure: April 3, 2013 
Vulnerability Type: SQL Injection [CWE-89]
CVE Reference: CVE-2013-2559
Risk Level: Medium 
CVSSv2 Base Score: 5.1 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)
Solution Status: Fixed by Vendor
Discovered and Provided: High-Tech Bridge Security Research Lab ( https://www.htbridge.com/advisory/ ) 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advisory Details:

High-Tech Bridge Security Research Lab discovered SQL injection vulnerability in Symphony, which can be exploited to alter SQL requests to database of the vulnerable application.


1) SQL Injection in Symphony: CVE-2013-2559

The vulnerability exists due to insufficient filtration of "sort" HTTP GET parameter passed via "/symphony/system/authors/" URL to "/index.php" script. A remote authenticated administrator can execute arbitrary SQL commands in the application's database.

Depending on database and system configuration, this PoC (Proof of Concept) code will create "/var/www/file.txt"  file, containing users account information (logins, hashed passwords, etc.) from the "authors" table:

http://[host]/symphony/system/authors/?order=asc&sort=id%20INTO%20OUTFILE%20%27/var/www/file.txt%27%20--%20


This vulnerability could also be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via CSRF vector, since the application is prone to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. In order to do so an attacker should trick the logged-in administrator to visit a web page with CSRF exploit:

<img src="http://[host]/symphony/system/authors/?order=asc&sort=id%20INTO%20OUTFILE%20%27/var/www/file.txt%27%20--%20">

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solution:

Upgrade to Symphony 2.3.2

More Information:
http://getsymphony.com/download/releases/version/2.3.2/
https://github.com/symphonycms/symphony-2/commit/6c8aa4e9c810994f7632837487426867ce50f468

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:

[1] High-Tech Bridge Advisory HTB23148 - https://www.htbridge.com/advisory/HTB23148 - SQL Injection Vulnerability in Symphony.
[2] Symphony - http://getsymphony.com/ - XSLT-powered open source content management system.
[3] Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) - http://cve.mitre.org/ - international in scope and free for public use, CVE® is a dictionary of publicly known information security vulnerabilities and exposures.
[4] Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) - http://cwe.mitre.org - targeted to developers and security practitioners, CWE is a formal list of software weakness types. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: The information provided in this Advisory is provided "as is" and without any warranty of any kind. Details of this Advisory may be updated in order to provide as accurate information as possible. The latest version of the Advisory is available on web page [1] in the References.