Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessLure authenticated victim to attacker page
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ExploitAuto-submit forged contact form
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ExecutionBrowser sends request with victim session
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ImpactForged message reaches admin inbox
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V3 - Web Frontend Security Anti-CSRF tokens, SameSite cookies
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Initial Access The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires an authenticated Cotonti victim (user logged into the site) to visit an attacker-controlled page while their session is active (CVSS UI:P), and requires the vulnerable contact plugin to be installed and its submission handler reachable. The attacker needs no credentials or privileges of their own (PR:N), but cannot act without the victim's browser and valid session. Limiting factors: the required user interaction, dependence on the contact plugin being enabled, and the low-impact outcome (forged messages to the admin inbox only - no data exposure or system compromise). Versions through 1.0.0 are affected; the fix (cot_check_xg() token check) is available from the vendor. |
| Impact | This is a genuine but modest-severity CSRF flaw (CWE-352) rated 5.3 by the vendor using CVSS 4.0. All exploitation signals point to LOW real-world priority. The 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N) shows only limited integrity impact (VI:L) with no confidentiality or availability effect - consistent with the described outcome of forged contact-form messages, not code execution or data theft. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit code (POC) were provided, so this is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis.' The vector requires passive user interaction (UI:P): a victim must be logged in and lured to an attacker-controlled page, which materially limits reach versus a fully unauthenticated automatic attack. The vendor 5.3 rating and my independent assessment (~4.3 in CVSS 3.1 terms) are broadly aligned; no metrics are in conflict. Net: real, verifiable, patched, but low priority - the impact ceiling is spoofed inbox messages to the administrator, not compromise of the application. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker hosts a web page containing a hidden, auto-submitting form that POSTs to the Cotonti contact plugin handler. When an authenticated victim visits that page, their browser silently submits the forged contact form, delivering a spoofed message attributed to the victim into the administrator's inbox. No public exploit code is available, but the technique is trivial and the missing token check (patched by adding cot_check_xg()) confirms the mechanism. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Sep 18, 2026
Cross-site request forgery in the Cotonti CMS contact plugin (through version 1.0.0) lets an attacker auto-submit the contact form from an attacker-controlled page, sending forged messages into the administrator inbox that appear to originate from a logged-in victim (CWE-352, CVSS 4.0 base 5.3 / assessed CVSS 3.1 5.3). The submission handler never validates an anti-CSRF token, so any authenticated user who visits a malicious page while their session is active can be silently impersonated. Exploitation requires victim interaction and an enabled contact plugin, and the impact is limited to message forgery and inbox spam - no data disclosure or system compromise; no public exploit code and no confirmed active exploitation were identified at time of analysis.
RemediationAI
Apply the vendor's upstream fix, which adds the cot_check_xg() CSRF token guard to plugins/contact/contact.php as shown in https://github.com/Cotonti/Cotonti/pull/1903 - patch status is 'vendor-released fix (PR #1903); a tagged patched release version is not independently confirmed', so either deploy that commit/patch directly or upgrade past the vulnerable 1.0.0 codebase once a tagged release is published. Because the change is a single token-check line, it can be back-ported safely into 1.0.0 installations with minimal regression risk; the side effect is that legitimate submissions must carry a valid, session-bound token, so any custom themes or templates that render the contact form must include the hidden token field or submissions will be rejected. If you cannot patch immediately, disabling the contact plugin (Admin Panel > Plugins > Contact) removes the attack surface entirely at the cost of losing the contact form, or restrict the plugin's use to logged-in users with cookies set to SameSite=Lax/Strict so cross-site POSTs do not carry the session, though SameSite alone is a weaker control than the token check. Monitor the administrator inbox for suspicious volume or spoofed senders as a detective measure.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Cotonti is a PHP/MySQL content management framework whose contact plugin (plugins/contact/contact.php) handles user-submitted contact messages delivered to the administrator. The flaw is a classic CWE-352 cross-site request forgery: the plugin's submission handler processes POST data without verifying a per-session anti-CSRF token, so a third-party site can craft a form that the victim's browser submits automatically with the victim's session cookie attached. The upstream fix in pull request #1903 adds a cot_check_xg() call at the top of the handler - Cotonti's built-in token/XSRF guard function that validates the request against the session-bound token - which is the canonical mitigation for this class of bug in this framework. The affected code is version-agnostic per the CPE cpe:2.3:a:cotonti:cotonti:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* (all versions through 1.0.0), and the vulnerable path is only reachable when the contact plugin is installed and enabled and the visitor holds an active authenticated session.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Remote CSRF needs no attacker privileges (PR:N) but relies on a victim visiting a malicious page (UI:R); impact is limited to forged low-integrity messages, so C:N/I:L/A:N.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
DescriptionCVE.org
Cotonti through 1.0.0 fails to validate anti-CSRF tokens in the contact plugin submission handler, allowing attackers to forge messages. Attackers can auto-submit contact forms from attacker-controlled pages to send forged messages attributed to authenticated victims to the administrator inbox.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Cross-Site Request Forgery exploits the automatic credential inclusion behavior of web browsers.
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A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Edit Page function of Cotonti CMS v0.9.24 allows authenticated
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Cross-Site Request Forgery in the Personal File Storage (PFS) module of Cotonti 1.0.0 (commit f43f1fc3) allows remote at
PHP object injection in Cotonti 1.0.0 allows authenticated users with comment-write permissions to pass attacker-control
EUVD-2026-83370
GHSA-fx98-4ggj-ff23
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB