CVE-2006-6508
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedCross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in phpBB 2.0.21 allows remote authenticated users to send unauthorized messages as an arbitrary user via unspecified vectors. NOTE: the provenance of this information is unknown; the details are obtained solely from third party information.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceCross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in phpBB 2.0.21 allows remote authenticated users to send unauthorized messages as an arbitrary user by tricking authenticated users into submitting malicious requests.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 2.0.21CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- Single
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify phpBB versionLocate the file 'includes/constants.php' in your phpBB installation and look for a line defining PHPBB_VERSION or the version number in the header commentsAffected if The version is exactly 2.0.21
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Confirm phpBB is runningAccess your phpBB installation via web browser and verify the forum is functional and accessibleAffected if The forum loads and users can authenticate to it
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Check if anti-CSRF protection existsInspect the 'includes/functions.php' or 'includes/template.php' files for the presence of session tokens, form tokens, or CSRF-checking functions. Search for keywords like 'token', 'sid', or 'csrf' in the codeAffected if No anti-CSRF token mechanism is found in the code (the vulnerability is present)
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Verify user authentication is possibleAttempt to log in to the phpBB forum with valid credentialsAffected if Users can successfully authenticate to the forum (authenticated users can be exploited via CSRF)
Your environment is affected if you are running phpBB 2.0.21 without any custom anti-CSRF token implementation, and users can authenticate to the forum.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade to a supported version of phpBB (3.x series) which includes built-in anti-CSRF protections; alternatively, implement anti-CSRF tokens in phpBB 2.0.21 if continued use is required.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2006-6508 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2006-6508 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data