#vufind

VuFind 1.0 Reflected XSS (Cross-site Scripting) Application 0-Day Web Security Bug

Exploit Title: VuFind Results? &lookfor parameter Reflected XSS Web Security Vulnerability

Product: VuFind

Vendor: VuFind

Vulnerable Versions: 1.0

Tested Version: 1.0

Advisory Publication: September 20, 2015

Latest Update: September 25, 2015

Vulnerability Type: Cross-Site Scripting [CWE-79]

CVE Reference:

Impact CVSS Severity (version 2.0):

CVSS v2 Base Score: 4.3 (MEDIUM) (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N) (legend)

Impact Subscore: 2.9

Exploitability Subscore: 8.6

CVSS Version 2 Metrics:

Access Vector: Network exploitable; Victim must voluntarily interact with attack mechanism

Access Complexity: Medium

Authentication: Not required to exploit

Impact Type: Allows unauthorized modification

Discover and Reporter: Wang Jing [School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore] (@justqdjing)

Caution Details:

(1) Vendor & Product Description:

Vendor:

VuFind

Product & Vulnerable Versions:

VuFind

1.0

Vendor URL & Download:

Product can be obtained from here, http://sourceforge.net/p/vufind/news/

Product Introduction Overview:

"VuFind is a library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries. The goal of VuFind is to enable your users to search and browse through all of your library's resources by replacing the traditional OPAC to include: Catalog Records, Locally Cached Journals, Digital Library Items, Institutional Repository, Institutional Bibliography, Other Library Collections and Resources. VuFind is completely modular so you can implement just the basic system, or all of the components. And since it's open source, you can modify the modules to best fit your need or you can add new modules to extend your resource offerings. VuFind runs on Solr Energy. Apache Solr, an open source search engine, offers amazing performance and scalability to allow for VuFind to respond to search queries in milliseconds time. It has the ability to be distributed if you need to spread the load of the catalog over many servers or in a server farm environment. VuFind is offered for free through the GPL open source license. This means that you can use the software for free. You can modify the software and share your successes with the community! Take a look at our VuFind Installations Wiki page to see how a variety of organizations have taken advantage of VuFind's flexibility. If you are already using VuFind, feel free to edit the page and share your accomplishments. "

(2) Vulnerability Details:

VuFind web application has a computer security problem. Hackers can exploit it by reflected XSS cyber attacks. This may allow a remote attacker to create a specially crafted request that would execute arbitrary script code in a user's browser session within the trust relationship between their browser and the server.

Several other similar products 0-day vulnerabilities have been found by some other bug researchers before. VuFind has patched some of them. "scip AG was founded in 2002. We are driven by innovation, sustainability, transparency, and enjoyment of our work. We are completely self-funded and are thus in the comfortable position to provide completely independent and neutral services. Our staff consists of highly specialized experts who focus on the topic information security and continuously further their expertise through advanced training".

(2.1) The code flaw occurs at "lookfor?" parameter in "/vufind/Resource/Results?" page.

Some other researcher has reported a similar vulnerability here and VuFind has patched it. https://vufind.org/jira/si/jira.issueviews:issue-html/VUFIND-54/VUFIND-54.html

(3) Solution:

Update to new version.

VuFind Overview

Developed at Villanova University, VuFind is a portal designed to allow users to search and browse through a library’s resources. A quick scan through  VuFind’s website reveals plenty of information and features about the project, documentation about how to install and configure their software, and even upcoming events held in Germany. It appears that the project is still active; the last release was 2.4.1 back in late May 2015, but it looks like the project has a major update at least once a year. After a bit more searching, there doesn’t seem to be a clear starting point for someone looking to get involved without following a link to GitHub. For a project that is holding international meetings with German Universities, I’m surprised to see that VuFind does not host their own code. Overall, this seems like a very credible project that is far along in its development process, but it still has some growing to do before it becomes a standalone open source project.

Mifos X Overview