PHPGurukul Student Record System SQL Injection Vulnerability in Course Management

A critical SQL injection vulnerability has been identified in the PHPGurukul Student Record System version 3.20, specifically within the '/add-course.php' file. The issue arises from inadequate validation of user input for the 'course-short' parameter, allowing attackers to inject malicious SQL queries. This vulnerability can be exploited remotely, without any authentication, potentially leading to unauthorized access to the database, data manipulation, and leakage of sensitive information.

Impact

Exploitation of this vulnerability allows for SQL injection, where attackers can interfere with the application's database queries. This could lead to unauthorized data access, data manipulation, and in some cases, executing administrative operations on the database.

Reproduction

The vulnerability can be reproduced by sending a POST request to '/studentrecordms/add-course.php' with the 'course-short' parameter. The injected SQL payload can be crafted to exploit the application's SQL query handling, such as using time-based blind SQL injection techniques.

Remediation

It is recommended to implement prepared statements and parameter binding to prevent SQL injection. Additionally, input validation and filtering should be applied to ensure that user input meets expected formats, blocking malicious data. Minimizing database user permissions is also advised, ensuring that the database connection uses an account with only necessary privileges.