Cross-Site Request Forgery
Cross-Site Request Forgery exploits the automatic credential inclusion behavior of web browsers.
How It Works
Cross-Site Request Forgery exploits the automatic credential inclusion behavior of web browsers. When a user authenticates to a web application, the browser stores session cookies that are automatically attached to every subsequent request to that domain—regardless of which website initiated the request. An attacker leverages this by crafting a malicious webpage containing requests to a target application, such as hidden forms that auto-submit on page load or images with URLs triggering state-changing actions.
The attack succeeds when the victim, while authenticated to the target application, visits the attacker's page. The browser dutifully includes the victim's session cookies with the forged request, making it appear legitimate to the server. The target application executes the action as if the authenticated user intentionally initiated it.
Common attack vectors include hidden HTML forms with auto-submit JavaScript, malicious image tags where the src attribute points to an action URL, and links embedded in phishing emails. The key requirement is that request parameters must be predictable—if the attacker can construct the entire request without knowing any secret values, the attack will succeed.
Impact
- Account takeover: Password or email address changes, locking out legitimate users
- Financial fraud: Unauthorized fund transfers, purchases, or subscription modifications
- Privilege escalation: Creation of admin accounts or modification of user roles
- Data manipulation: Deletion of records, modification of settings, or content publishing
- Social engineering amplification: Forced social media posts or message sending to spread malware
Real-World Examples
Banking applications have been frequent CSRF targets, with attackers creating malicious pages that automatically initiate wire transfers when visited by authenticated customers. One notable case involved a router configuration vulnerability where attackers embedded requests in forum posts to silently change DNS settings on victims' home routers, redirecting traffic through malicious servers.
YouTube suffered a CSRF vulnerability that allowed attackers to perform actions like adding videos to favorites or subscribing to channels on behalf of authenticated users by embedding malicious requests in external websites. The attack demonstrated how CSRF can manipulate social features at scale.
Content management systems have historically been vulnerable, with attacks forcing authenticated administrators to create new admin accounts or install malicious plugins simply by visiting attacker-controlled pages while logged into the CMS backend.
Mitigation
- Synchronizer tokens: Generate unpredictable, per-session or per-request tokens that must accompany state-changing requests
- SameSite cookie attribute: Set to
StrictorLaxto prevent cookies from being sent with cross-origin requests - Double-submit cookies: Require a cookie value to match a request parameter, making cross-origin forgery impossible
- Custom request headers: Use JavaScript to add headers that cross-origin requests cannot set
- Re-authentication: Require password confirmation for sensitive actions like email or password changes
- Referer validation: Verify the request originated from your domain (less reliable, can be bypassed)
Recent CVEs (8774)
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the customizer in WordPress before 3.4.1 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in eXtplorer 2.1 RC3 and earlier allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that add an administrator account. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in accountmgr/adminupdate.php in the WebAdmin Portal in Netsweeper allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Brightmail Control Center in Symantec Message Filter 6.3 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in web@all 2.0, as downloaded before May 30, 2012, allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the Maestro module 7.x-1.x before 7.x-1.2 for Drupal allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the SimpleMeta module 6.x-1.x before 6.x-2.0 for Drupal allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the Node Hierarchy module 6.x-1.x before 6.x-1.5 for Drupal allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the BrowserID (Mozilla Persona) module 7.x-1.x before 7.x-1.3 for Drupal allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the admin/editor console in Apache Roller before 5.0.1 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of admins or editors by. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Comment Moderation module 6.x-1.x before 6.x-1.1 for Drupal allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the administrative interface in Bradford Network Sentry before 5.3.3 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in password-manager/changePasswords.do in BMC Identity Management Suite 7.5.00.103 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Microdasys before 3.5.1-B708, as used in Bloxx Web Filtering before 5.0.14 and other products, allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the administrative interface in Bloxx Web Filtering before 5.0.14 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Directory traversal vulnerability in the captcha module in Pligg CMS before 1.2.2 allows remote authenticated users to include and execute arbitrary local files via a .. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Take Control module 6.x-2.x before 6.x-2.2 for Drupal allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified users for Ajax. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
The wp_create_nonce function in wp-includes/pluggable.php in WordPress 3.3.1 and earlier associates a nonce with a user account instead of a user session, which might make it easier for remote. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in IBM Rational AppScan Enterprise 5.x and 8.x before 8.5.0.1 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in HP Insight Management Agents before 9.0.0.0 on Windows Server 2003 and 2008 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in ownCloud before 3.0.3 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for requests that insert cross-site scripting (XSS). Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in RealNetworks Helix Server and Helix Mobile Server 14.x before 14.3.x allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in SENCHA SNS before 1.0.2 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in saveRestore.htm on the Quantum Scalar i500 tape library with firmware before i7.0.3 (604G.GS00100), also distributed as the Dell ML6000 tape library. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Janetter before 3.3.0.0 (aka 3.3.0) allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for requests that (1) tweet,. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Webfolio CMS 1.1.4 and earlier allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that (1) add an. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in main.php in Contao (formerly TYPOlight) 2.11.0 and earlier allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in VMware vShield Manager (vSM) 1.0.1 before Update 2 and 4.1.0 before Update 2 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Movable Type before 4.38, 5.0x before 5.07, and 5.1x before 5.13 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in xmlrpc.cgi in Bugzilla 4.0.2 through 4.0.4 and 4.1.1 through 4.2rc2, when mod_perl is used, allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in admin/index.php in 11in1 1.2.1 stable 12-31-2011 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that add new. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Advantech/BroadWin WebAccess 7.0 allows remote authenticated users to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Advantech/BroadWin WebAccess before 7.0 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in admin.php in pluck 4.7 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of admins for requests that (1) modify the admin email address. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in modules/config/admin_utente.php in GAzie 5.20 and earlier allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in admin.php in PBBoard 2.1.4 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that (1) upload a file via. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Terminal PHP Shell (terminal) extension 0.3.2 and earlier for TYPO3 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Flyspray 0.9.9.6 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of admins for requests that add admin accounts via an admin.newuser action to. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the clickthrough tracking functionality in the Forward module 6.x-1.x before 6.x-1.21 and 7.x-1.x before 7.x-1.3 for Drupal allows remote attackers. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Mibew Messenger 1.6.4 and earlier allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of operators for requests that insert cross-site. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in admin/settings/update in DClassifieds 0.1 final allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that modify. Rated low severity (CVSS 3.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available.
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities on the eAccess Pocket WiFi (aka GP02) router before 2.00 with firmware 11.203.11.05.168 and earlier allow remote attackers to hijack the. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in jsonrpc.cgi in Bugzilla 3.5.x and 3.6.x before 3.6.8, 3.7.x and 4.0.x before 4.0.4, and 4.1.x and 4.2.x before 4.2rc2 allows remote attackers to. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Stoneware webNetwork before 6.0.8.0 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims for requests that modify user. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Quick Facts
- Typical Severity
- MEDIUM
- Category
- web
- Total CVEs
- 8774