Vulnerability Tutorial - vBulletin vulnerabilities
  Updated: 11/06/12     (RED light)  
Impact
A remote attacker could execute arbitrary PHP script, execute SQL queries, obtain potentially sensitive information, or launch a cross-site scripting attack.
Background
vBulletin is a commercial web bulletin board application written in PHP using MySQL.
The Problem

YUI SWF Vulnerability

11/06/12
CVE NONE-0464
vBulletin before 4.1.12 PL3 and 4.2 PL3 is prone to a vulnerability which has been reported in YUI. The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error related to SWF files.

Activity Stream Script Insertion Vulnerability

06/21/12
CVE NONE-0403
vBulletin 4.2 is prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious users to conduct script insertion attacks. Certain input passed via the Activity Stream is not properly sanitised in activitystream/view/perm/calendar/event.php before being displayed to the user. This can be exploited to insert arbitrary HTML and script code, which will be executed in a user's browser session in context of an affected site when the malicious data is being viewed.

MAPI Vulnerability in 4.1.12

04/27/12
CVE 2012-4328
vBulletin versions 4.1.2 through 4.1.12 are prone to a vulnerability with an unknown impact. The vulnerability is caused due to an error within the MAPI functionality.

Script Insertion Vulnerabilities in 4.1.11

04/12/12
CVE NONE-0371
vBulletin versions 4.1.4 through 4.1.11 are prone to two vulnerabilities, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct script insertion attacks. Certain unspecified input is not properly sanitised in clientscript/ckeplugins/bbcode/plugin.js and clientscript/ckeditor/ckeditor.js before being used. This can be exploited to insert arbitrary HTML and script code, which will be executed in a user's browser session in context of an affected site if malicious data is viewed.

"[URL]" BBCode Script Insertion Vulnerability

03/29/12
CVE NONE-0361
vBulletin 4.1.11 and prior are prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious users to conduct script insertion attacks. Input passed via "[URL]" BBCode when e.g. posting a group discussion is not properly sanitised before being used when e.g. previewing a blog post quoting the group discussion within the editor in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) mode. This can be exploited to insert arbitrary HTML and script code, which will be executed in a user's browser session in context of an affected site if malicious data is viewed.

Blog Posts Security Bypass Vulnerability

01/20/12
CVE NONE-0324
vBulletin 3.x is prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious users to bypass certain security restrictions. The security issue is caused due to the blog_post.php script not checking certain permissions, and can be exploited to post blog entries.

AdminCP Unspecified Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability

08/08/11
CVE NONE-0262
vBulletin 4.1.3, 4.1.4, and 4.1.5 are prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks. Certain unspecified input related to the AdminCP is not properly sanitised before being returned to the user. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary HTML and script code in a user's browser session in context of an affected site.

Search UI Unspecified SQL Injection Vulnerability in 4.x

07/26/11
CVE NONE-0257
vBulletin 4.x is prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct SQL injection attacks. Certain unspecified input related to the search UI is not properly sanitised before being used in a SQL query. This can be exploited to manipulate SQL queries by injecting arbitrary SQL code.

"url" Redirection Vulnerability

06/10/11
CVE NONE-0234
vBulletin 3.x and 4.x are prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct spoofing attacks. Input passed via the "url" parameter to login.php is not properly verified before being used to redirect users. This can be exploited to redirect a user to an arbitrary website e.g. when a user clicks a specially crafted link to the affected script hosted on a trusted domain.

YUI Component Library Unspecified Vulnerability

06/07/11
CVE NONE-0231
The vBulletin 'YUI' component is prone to an unspecified vulnerability. vBulletin versions prior to 3.8.7 PL1 and 4.1.3 PL1 are vulnerable.

Search UI Unspecified SQL Injection Vulnerability

04/14/11
CVE NONE-0198
vBulletin 4.1.2 and prior are prone to a vulnerability, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct SQL injection attacks. Certain unspecified input related to the search UI is not properly sanitised before being used in a SQL query. This can be exploited to manipulate SQL queries by injecting arbitrary SQL code.

'Profile Customization' Feature HTML Injection Vulnerability

11/25/10
CVE NONE-0143
vBulletin 4.0.8 and prior are prone to an HTML-injection vulnerability because it fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input before using it in dynamically generated content. Successful exploits will allow attacker-supplied HTML and script code to run in the context of the affected browser, potentially allowing the attacker to steal cookie-based authentication credentials or to control how the site is rendered to the user. Other attacks are also possible.

faq.php Information Disclosure Vulnerability

08/12/10
CVE NONE-0089
vBulletin 3.8.6 and prior are prone to an information-disclosure vulnerability. Successful exploits can allow attackers to obtain potentially sensitive information which may aid in other attacks.

Multiple Vulnerabilities in version 4.0.2 and prior

05/21/10
CVE NONE-0035
vBulletin 4.0.2 and prior is prone to multiple cross-site vulnerabilities which allows an attacker to execute arbitrary script code in the browser of an unsuspecting user in the context of the affected site. A HTML-injection vulnerability may also allow the attacker to steal cookie-based authentication credentials and to launch other attacks.

Multiple Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities

03/30/10
vBulletin 4.0.2 is prone to multiple cross-site vulnerabilities which allows an attacker to execute arbitrary script code in the browser of an unsuspecting user in the context of the affected site. This may allow the attacker to steal cookie-based authentication credentials and to launch other attacks.

misc.php SQL Injection Vulnerability

02/01/10
vBulletin before 4.0.1 is prone to an SQL-injection vulnerability because it fails to sufficiently sanitize user-supplied data before using it in an SQL query. Exploiting this issue could allow an attacker to compromise the application, access or modify data, or exploit latent vulnerabilities in the underlying database.

Spoof User Data Unspecified Input Validation Vulnerability

01/20/10
vBulletin before 4.0.0 PL1, 3.8.4 PL2, and 3.7.6 PL2 are prone to an unspecified input-validation vulnerability. Attackers can exploit this issue to perform brute-force attacks to spoof users' input data.

Home Page Field HTML Injection Vulnerability

11/06/09
vBulletin before 3.8.4 PL1, 3.7.6 PL1, and 3.6.12 PL2 are prone to a HTML-injection vulnerability because it fails to sufficiently sanitize user-supplied data. Attacker-supplied HTML or JavaScript code could run in the context of the affected site, potentially allowing the attacker to steal cookie-based authentication credentials and to control how the site is rendered to the user.

Visitor Messages Addon Comment Notification HTML Injection

12/12/08
vBulletin before 3.7.4 is prone to a HTML-injection vulnerability because it fails to sufficiently sanitize user-supplied data. Attacker-supplied HTML or JavaScript code could run in the context of the affected site, potentially allowing the attacker to steal cookie-based authentication credentials and to control how the site is rendered to the user.

Multiple Sql Injection Vulnerabilities in vBulletin 3.7.4 and 3.7.3.pl1

12/03/08
CVE 2008-6255
vBulletin 3.7.4 and 3.7.3.pl1 have multiple vulnerabilities:

  • "admincalendar.php" SQL Injection in 3.7.3.pl1,
  • "admincp/verify.php" SQL Injection in 3.7.4,
  • "admincp/attachmentpermission.php" SQL Injection in 3.7.4, and
  • "admincp/image.php" SQL Injection in 3.7.4.

$newpm[title] Parameter Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability

09/09/08
CVE 2008-3773
vBulletin versions prior to 3.6.10 PL4 and 3.7.2 PL2 have a cross-site scripting vulnerability caused by a failure to sanitize user input, when "Show New Private Message Notification Pop-Up" is enabled.

Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities

07/21/08
CVE 2008-3184
vBulletin versions up to and including 3.6.10 PL2 and 3.7.2 have a cross-site scripting vulnerability caused by a failure to sanitize user input.

SQL injection vulnerability in 3.6.4

03/13/07
CVE 2007-1292
vBulletin 3.6.4 and possibly earlier versions have an SQL injection vulnerability caused by a failure to sanitize user-supplied data to the postids parameter to inlinemod.php.

Cross-site scripting fixed in 3.6.4

12/04/06
CVE 2006-6040
vBulletin (3.6.x) is affected by a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the prefs parameter in a buildnavprefs action and the navprefs parameter in a savenavprefs action. Versions 3.6 through 3.6.3 are affected.

SQL injection vulnerability in 2.3.X

10/06/06
CVE 2006-5104
vBulletin (2.3.x) is affected by an SQL injection vulnerability in the global.php script. Versions up to and including 2.3.8 are affected.

Cross-site scripting fixed in 3.0.15

08/18/06
vBulletin (3.0.x) is affected by a number of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities which were fixed in 3.0.15. These include vulnerabilities in the global.php script.

Cross-site scripting in u

06/30/06
CVE 2006-3253
vBulletin is affected by a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the u field of member.php. This affects versions 3.5.4 and prior in the 3.5 branch.

Cross-site scripting in email

04/19/06
CVE 2006-1040
vBulletin is affected by a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the email field of sendmsg.php. This affects versions 3.0.12 and prior in the 3.0 branch and 3.5.3 and prior in the 3.5 branch.

Cross-site scripting in title

04/19/06
CVE 2006-0080
vBulletin is affected by a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the title field of calendar.php and reminder.php. This affects versions 3.5.2 and prior in the 3.5 branch.

Cross-site scripting in url

04/19/06
CVE 2005-4621
vBulletin is affected by a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the remote avatar url field of the editavatar page. This affects versions 3.5.2 and prior in the 3.5 branch.

Image Upload Cross-site scripting (IE6 Only)

11/17/05
vBulletin is affected (as are many other products) by a flaw in Internet Explorer 6, that allows a cross-site scripting exploit for image uploads. This affects versions prior to 3.5.1, 3.0.10 and 2.3.8 and only when using Internet Explorer version 6.

Multiple Vulnerabilities in vBulletin 3.0.7 - 3.0.9

09/23/05
CVE 2005-3019
CVE 2005-3020
CVE 2005-3021
CVE 2005-3022
CVE 2005-3023
CVE 2005-3024
CVE 2005-3025
vBulletin is affected by SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and arbitrary file upload vulnerabilities in multiple scripts. Some of these vulnerabilities were fixed in version 3.0.8 and 3.0.9, but others remained unfixed in version 3.0.9.

comma Command Execution Vulnerability

02/22/05
CVE 2005-0429
forumdisplay.php uses the comma input parameter in a PHP eval command without proper initialization. This could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary PHP commands by placing the commands within this parameter. vBulletin 3.0 through 3.0.4 are affected by this vulnerability if showforumusers is set to on and magic_quotes_gpc is set to off.

01/24/05
The same versions of vBulletin also contain a critical vulnerability in the init.php script when using PHP 4 with register_globals enabled.

Template Name PHP Injection

02/28/05
CVE 2005-0511
A vulnerability in misc.php could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary PHP code by sending a specially crafted template parameter. In order for this vulnerability to be exploitable, the Add Template Name in HTML Comments option would need to be enabled. This option is not enabled by default. vBulletin 3.0.6 and earlier are affected by this vulnerability.

SQL Injection

09/22/04
11/16/04
CVE 2004-1515
CVE 2004-2695
vBulletin 3.0 through 3.0.3 are affected by two SQL injection vulnerabilities. The first is exploitable when vBulletin is used with the Authorize.net payment manager. A remote attacker could execute SQL commands on the back-end database by sending a malformed x_invoice_num parameter in an HTTP request. The second is in the last.php script and allows execution of SQL commands in a malformed fsel parameter.

Remote PHP file include

05/28/04
A remote attacker could cause vBulletin to include and execute arbitrary PHP commands hosted on the attacker's web site. This is due to insufficient checking of the loc parameter in the admincp/index.php script before using it in an included file path. vBulletin 3.0 beta 7 and earlier and 3.0 gamma are affected by this vulnerability.

Cross-site scripting

Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in the following scripts could allow a remote attacker to run arbitrary JavaScript code in unsuspecting clients' browsers:

  • 07/01/04 (CVE 2004-0620) newreply.php and newthread.php (3.0.1)
  • (CVE 2003-0295) private.php Preview Message capability (3.0 through 3.0 beta 2)
  • (CVE 2003-1031) register.php optional fields (3.0 through 3.0 beta 2)
  • (CVE 2004-0091) register.php reg_site parameter (3.0 through 3.0 beta 7)
  • (CVE 2004-1823) showthread.php page parameter or forumdisplay.php order parameter (2.0 beta 3 through 3.0 can 4)
  • (CVE 2004-1824) memberlist.php what parameter (before 3.0)

Remote PHP command execution

CVE 2001-0475
Due to a lack of checking of the templatecache parameter for quotation characters, a remote attacker could execute PHP commands using malformed requests for various PHP scripts. vBulletin 2.0 prior to 2.0 beta 3 and all versions prior to 1.1.6 are affected by this vulnerability.

calendar.php Vulnerabilities

CVE 2002-1660
CVE 2002-2157
CVE 2004-0036
The calendar.php script is affected by two vulnerabilities. Firstly, it uses the input parameter eventid in an SQL query without checking for illegal characters, which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary queries using a malformed URL request. vBulletin prior to 2.3.4 is affected by this vulnerability. Secondly, a remote attacker could execute operating system commands by sending a specially crafted comma parameter. vBulletin prior to 2.2.8 is affected by this vulnerability.

Resolution
Upgrade vBulletin to a version higher than 3.8.7 PL1 for 3.x, a version higher than 4.1.12 PL2 for 4.1.x, or a version higher than 4.2 PL2 for 4.2.x.
More Information
The YUI SWF vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA51208.

The Activity Stream Script Insertion vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA49482.

The MAPI vulnerability in 4.1.12 was reported in Secunia Advisory SA48917.

The Script Insertion vulnerabilities in 4.1.11 were reported in Secunia Advisory SA48541.

The "[URL]" BBCode Script Insertion vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA48506.

The Blog Posts Security Bypass vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA47536.

The AdminCP Unspecified Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA45481.

The Search UI Unspecified SQL Injection Vulnerability in 4.x was reported in Secunia Advisory SA45290.

The "url" Redirection vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA44830.

The YUI Component Library Unspecified vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA44794.

The Search UI Unspecified SQL Injection vulnerability was reported in Secunia Advisory SA44084.

The 'Profile Customization' Feature HTML Injection vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 44873.

The faq.php Information Disclosure vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 41875.

The Multiple Vulnerabilities in version 4.0.2 and prior were reported in Bugtraq ID 38977, Bugtraq ID 38895, and Bugtraq ID 38953.

The Multiple Cross Site Scripting vulnerabilities were reported in Bugtraq ID 38339 and Secunia Advisory SA38702.

The misc.php SQL Injection vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 37854.

The Spoof User Data Unspecified Input Validation vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 37545.

The Home Page Field HTML Injection vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 36643.

The Visitor Messages Addon Comment Notification HTML Injection vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 32387.

The multiple Sql Injection vulnerabilities in vBulletin 3.7.4 and 3.7.3.pl1 were reported in Bugtraq ID 32348, and Secunia Advisory 32775.

The $newpm[title] Parameter Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 30777.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 30134.

The SQL injection vulnerability in 3.6.4 was posted to Bugtraq ID 22780.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerability fixed in 3.6.4 was posted at Bugtraq ID 21157.

The SQL injection vulnerability in 2.3.X was posted at Bugtraq ID 20214.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerability fixed in 3.0.15 was posted at Bugtraq ID 19358.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerability for 3.5.4 was posted at Bugtraq archive 437817.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities for 3.5.3 and 3.0.12 are posted at Secunia Advisory SA19100.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerability for 3.5.2 is posted at Bugtraq ID 16116.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerability for 3.5.1 is posted at Bugtraq ID 16128.

The Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities (Internet Explorer 6) are discussed at the vBulletin Forum.

The vulnerabilities in vBulletin 3.0.7 were posted to Bugtraq.

The vulnerabilities in vBulletin 3.0.8 and 3.0.9 were posted to Bugtraq.

The comma command execution vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq archive 390380.

The template name PHP injection vulnerability was posted to Bugtraq archive 391195.

The init.php vulnerability was reported by vBulletin.

The SQL injection vulnerabilities were reported in Bugtraq, Secunia Advisory SA12531, the vBulletin community forum, and Bugtraq.

The PHP remote file include vulnerability was reported in Bugtraq ID 10362.

The cross-site scripting vulnerabilities were posted to Bugtraq, Bugtraq archive 321474, VulnWatch, and Vuln-Dev.

The remote PHP command execution vulnerability was posted to Bugtraq archive 351346.

The calendar.php command execution was reported in SecurityTracker alert 1005284.