Executive brief
CS-Cart is a popular e-commerce platform used by businesses to manage online stores. A security flaw allows an attacker to trick a logged-in user into performing unintended actions, specifically adding items to their product comparison list without their consent. While this specific action has low direct impact, it demonstrates a lack of security controls that could potentially be used in more complex social engineering or profiling attacks against customers.
Technical details
A Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability exists in CS-Cart version 4.18.3 within the index.php endpoint. The application fails to properly validate CSRF tokens for state-changing requests related to the product comparison functionality. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this by tricking an authenticated user into visiting a malicious webpage or clicking a link, which then executes a crafted HTTP request on the user's behalf. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to manipulate the user's comparison list, which can be used for user profiling or as a component in broader social engineering campaigns. Mitigation involves implementing robust CSRF token validation and applying SameSite cookie attributes.
Affected products
- CS-Cart CS-Cart 4.18.3
Timeline
- 2025-07-31: advisory: NVD publication date