CVE-2017-3187
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 · uneditedThe dotCMS administration panel, versions 3.7.1 and earlier, are vulnerable to cross-site request forgery. The dotCMS administrator panel contains a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability. An attacker can perform actions with the same permissions as a victim user, provided the victim has an active session and is induced to trigger the malicious request. An unauthenticated remote attacker may perform actions with the dotCMS administrator panel with the same permissions of a victim user or execute arbitrary system commands with the permissions of the user running the dotCMS application.
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 confidenceCSRF vulnerability in dotCMS admin panel versions 3.7.1 and earlier allows unauthenticated attackers to trick authenticated administrators into executing arbitrary system commands with the privileges of the dotCMS application user by inducing them to trigger 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<= 3.7.1CVSS 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
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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.
-
Identify dotCMS versionAccess the admin panel login page or check the application's footer/banner for version information. The version is often displayed on the login page or in the admin dashboard footer.Affected if The displayed version number is 3.7.1 or lower
-
Verify admin panel accessibilityConfirm the dotCMS admin panel is accessible at its typical endpoints such as /dotAdmin, /admin, or the default port 8080/admin. Attempt to access the login page.Affected if The admin panel is reachable without network restrictions and accepts authentication
-
Check for CSRF protection indicatorsLog into the admin panel and examine a state-changing form (such as content creation, user management, or configuration save). View the page source or inspect form submissions to verify if a CSRF token or anti-CSRF parameter is present in the form.Affected if Forms in the admin panel lack CSRF tokens or anti-CSRF tokens are not validated on submission
You are affected if your dotCMS version is 3.7.1 or earlier and the admin panel is accessible without proper CSRF token protection on state-changing operations.
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 for all state-changing operations in the admin panel, validate tokens server-side, and configure SameSite cookie attributes to prevent cross-site request forgery.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,480.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-3187 — 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-2017-3187 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
Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.
A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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