Vigil@nce - phpMyAdmin: file reading via XML
November 2011 by Vigil@nce
This bulletin was written by Vigil@nce : http://vigilance.fr/offer
SYNTHESIS OF THE VULNERABILITY
An attacker can provide XML data using an external entity, in
order to access to the content of a file or to create a denial of
service.
Severity: 2/4
Creation date: 04/11/2011
IMPACTED PRODUCTS
– TYPO3
– Unix - plateform
DESCRIPTION OF THE VULNERABILITY
The phpMyAdmin program is used to administer a MySQL database. It
has a plugin to import data in XML format.
XML data can contain external entities (DTD):
A program which reads these XML data can replace these entities by
data coming from the indicated file. When the program uses XML
data coming from an untrusted source, this behavior leads to:
– content disclosure from files of the server
– private web site scan
– a denial of service by opening a blocking file
This feature thus must be disabled to process data coming from an
untrusted source.
However, phpMyAdmin does not disable this feature.
An attacker can therefore provide XML data using an external
entity, in order to access to the content of a file or to create a
denial of service.
ACCESS TO THE COMPLETE VIGIL@NCE BULLETIN
http://vigilance.fr/vulnerability/phpMyAdmin-file-reading-via-XML-11123