Authentication Bypass in ADOdb/ADOdb

CVE-2021-3850 → View on GitHub ↗ View on CVE.org ↗ View on NVD ↗

Description

Impact

An attacker can inject values into a PostgreSQL connection string by providing a parameter surrounded by single quotes.

Depending on how the library is used in the client software, this may allow an attacker to bypass the login process, gain access to the server's IP address, etc.

Patches

The vulnerability is fixed in ADOdb versions 5.20.21 (952de6c4273d9b1e91c2b838044f8c2111150c29) and 5.21.4 or later (b4d5ce70034c5aac3a1d51d317d93c037a0938d2).

The simplest patch is to delete line 29 in drivers/adodb-postgres64.inc.php:

diff --git a/drivers/adodb-postgres64.inc.php b/drivers/adodb-postgres64.inc.php
index d04b7f67..729d7141 100644
--- a/drivers/adodb-postgres64.inc.php
+++ b/drivers/adodb-postgres64.inc.php
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@ function adodb_addslashes($s)
 {
    $len = strlen($s);
    if ($len == 0) return "''";
-   if (strncmp($s,"'",1) === 0 && substr($s,$len-1) == "'") return $s; // already quoted

    return "'".addslashes($s)."'";
 }

Workarounds

Ensure the parameters passed to ADOConnection::connect() or related functions (nConnect(), pConnect()) are not surrounded by single quotes.

Credits

Thanks to Emmet Leahy (@meme-lord) of Sorcery Ltd for reporting this vulnerability, and to the huntr team for their support.

References

  • Original issue report https://huntr.dev/bounties/bdf5f216-4499-4225-a737-b28bc6f5801c/
  • ADOdb reference issue #793

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
* Add a note in issue #793
* Contact the maintainers on Gitter

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
critical
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2022-01-27 15:23:19 UTC
Updated
2023-02-03 05:04:55 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2022-01-24 22:39:29 UTC
NVD published
2022-01-25

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.27% 50.88%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
9.1 3.1 —
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

Type Value
GHSA GHSA-65mj-7c86-79jf ↗
CVE CVE-2021-3850 ↗

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-287 Improper Authentication
CWE-305 Authentication Bypass by Primary Weakness

Credits

  • meme-lord (analyst)
  • dregad (analyst)

Affected packages (2)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
composer adodb/adodb-php <= 5.20.20 5.20.21 —
composer adodb/adodb-php >= 5.21.0, <= 5.21.3 5.21.4 —

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence