CVE-2009-4981
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 · uneditedMultiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Photokorn Gallery 1.81 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators.
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 confidencePhotokorn Gallery 1.81 contains multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities that allow remote attackers to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated administrators by tricking them into visiting malicious pages or clicking malicious links.
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<= 1.81CVSS 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
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/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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Confirm Photokorn Gallery installationLocate the Photokorn Gallery files on your web server. Look for the main PHP files (typically in the web root or a /photokorn directory). Verify the presence of index.php, admin.php, or similar Photokorn-specific files.Affected if The application is Photokorn Gallery and you cannot locate anti-CSRF token fields in your forms.
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Identify the installed versionCheck the version number in the application footer, admin dashboard, or in a version/info file within the Photokorn installation directory. Compare against the affected version 1.81 and below.Affected if The installed version is 1.81 or any version lower than 1.81.
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Inspect admin login and state-changing formsView the HTML source of admin forms (login, settings, image upload, category management). Look for a hidden input field containing a token or random string, or a parameter in the form action URL related to CSRF protection.Affected if The admin forms lack any token, nonce, or CSRF protection mechanism in the HTML.
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Verify CSRF token validation server-sideTemporarily submit a form request without any token (or with a fabricated token) and observe whether the server rejects the request or processes it successfully.Affected if The server accepts and processes form submissions without validating a CSRF token.
You are affected if Photokorn Gallery version 1.81 or lower is installed AND the admin forms (login, settings, content management) lack anti-CSRF token fields and server-side validation.
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 dataImplement anti-CSRF tokens on all state-changing operations (forms and URL actions) and validate these tokens server-side for every request that modifies data or authentication state.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation12.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $6,720.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2009-4981 — 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-2009-4981 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