CVE-2012-2246
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 · uneditedMahara 1.4.x before 1.4.5 and 1.5.x before 1.5.4 allows remote attackers to conduct clickjacking attacks to delete arbitrary users and bypass CSRF protection via account/delete.php.
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 · high confidenceMahara before 1.4.5 and 1.5.4 contains a clickjacking vulnerability in account/delete.php that allows remote attackers to trick authenticated administrators into deleting arbitrary user accounts by overlaying invisible iframes, simultaneously bypassing CSRF protections.
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= 1.4= 1.4.0= 1.4.1= 1.4.2= 1.4.3= 1.4.4= 1.5= 1.5.0= 1.5.1= 1.5.2= 1.5.3CVSS 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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Identify Mahara versionCheck the version.php file in the doc directory or look at the admin interface version display. Run: grep -r 'version' /path/to/mahara/lib/version.php 2>/dev/null | head -5Affected if The installed version is 1.4.0 through 1.4.4, or 1.5.0 through 1.5.3
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Verify account/delete.php existsCheck if the vulnerable script exists in the document root: ls -la /path/to/mahara/auth/ldap/lib.php 2>/dev/null; ls -la /path/to/mahara/account/delete.php 2>/dev/nullAffected if The file account/delete.php exists in the Mahara installation directory
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Test for missing X-Frame-Options headerUse curl or browser developer tools to request any Mahara page and inspect response headers. Run: curl -I https://your-mahara-site.example.com/ -s | grep -i x-frame-optionsAffected if The X-Frame-Options header is absent from HTTP responses, allowing the site to be embedded in iframes
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Verify clickjacking susceptibilityCreate a test HTML page with an iframe pointing to your Mahara account/delete.php and attempt to load it in a browser, or inspect the frame-ancestors and Content-Security-Policy headersAffected if The Mahara site can be embedded in an iframe on a third-party page without restriction
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Confirm administrator authentication is possibleLog into Mahara as an administrator and verify the user deletion interface at /account/delete.php is accessibleAffected if Authenticated administrators can access the user deletion functionality, making them potential targets for clickjacking attacks
You are affected if your Mahara version is 1.4.0-1.4.4 or 1.5.0-1.5.3 AND the X-Frame-Options header is missing from responses, allowing the account/delete.php endpoint to be embedded in invisible iframes.
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 X-Frame-Options: DENY or SAMEORIGIN headers on all responses and ensure CSRF tokens are properly validated on the user deletion endpoint.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 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-2012-2246 — 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-2012-2246 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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