Drupal

SA-2008-046 – Drupal core – Session fixation

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  • Advisory ID: DRUPAL-SA-2008-046
  • Project: Drupal core
  • Version: 5.x
  • Date: 2008-July-23
  • Security risk: Less critical
  • Exploitable from: Remote
  • Vulnerability: Session fixation

Description

When contributed modules such as Workflow NG terminate the current request during a login event, user module is not able to regenerate the user’s session. This may lead to a session fixation attack, when a malicious user is able to control another users’ initial session ID. As the session is not regenerated, the malicious user may use the ‘fixed’ session ID after the victim authenticates and will have the same access.

The advisory SA-2008-044 claims that this session fixation vulnerability was fixed in Drupal 5.8 and 6.3. Unfortunately, Drupal 5.8 still contains this vulnerability.

Versions affected

  • Drupal 5.x before version 5.9

Solution

Install the latest version:

  • If you are running Drupal 5.x then upgrade to Drupal 5.9.

If you are unable to upgrade immediately, you can apply a patch to secure your installation until you are able to do a proper upgrade. The patches fix security vulnerabilities, but do not contain other fixes which were released in these versions.

Reported by

  • The session fixation issue was originally reported by Erich C. Beyrent. Its continued existance in 5.8 was reported by dmnd.

Contact

The security contact for Drupal can be reached at security at drupal.org or via the form at http://drupal.org/contact.

Drupal version: 
Drupal 5.x

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