CVE-2022-26156
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 · uneditedAn issue was discovered in the web application in Cherwell Service Management (CSM) 10.2.3. Injection of a malicious payload within the RelayState= parameter of the HTTP request body results in the hijacking of the form action. Form-action hijacking vulnerabilities arise when an application places user-supplied input into the action URL of an HTML form. An attacker can use this vulnerability to construct a URL that, if visited by another application user, will modify the action URL of a form to point to the attacker's server.
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 confidenceThe vulnerability allows injection of malicious payloads into the RelayState parameter within the HTTP request body of Cherwell Service Management 10.2.3. User-supplied input is improperly placed into the action URL of an HTML form without validation, enabling an attacker to modify the form's action to point to their controlled server. When other users interact with the compromised form, their submission data gets redirected to the attacker.
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= 10.2.3CVSS 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
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
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 Cherwell Service Management installation versionCheck the installed version of Cherwell Service Management in the application or system information panel, typically found in the admin console under 'About' or 'System Information', or by inspecting the footer of the login pageAffected if The installed version is exactly 10.2.3 (no other versions are listed as affected)
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Confirm SAML or SSO authentication is enabledVerify if the Cherwell instance has SAML-based Single Sign-On configured, as the RelayState parameter is used in SAML authentication flows. Check the authentication settings in the Cherwell admin consoleAffected if SAML/SSO authentication is enabled and the application uses RelayState in the authentication process
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Inspect HTTP requests for RelayState parameterUse a web proxy or browser developer tools to capture an authentication request to the Cherwell login page. Look for a POST request containing a 'RelayState' parameter in the HTTP bodyAffected if The HTTP request body contains a RelayState parameter with user-controllable input
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Check if RelayState is reflected in HTML without encodingExamine the HTML source of the login or SAML initiation page. Look for the RelayState value being inserted into a form's action attribute or other HTML context without proper encodingAffected if The RelayState parameter value appears in the HTML response without being escaped or encoded, allowing injection of arbitrary attributes into form elements
A user is affected if they are running Cherwell Service Management version 10.2.3 with SAML/SSO authentication enabled, and the RelayState parameter from HTTP requests is being reflected into HTML output without proper encoding.
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 strict input validation and allowlisting for the RelayState parameter, ensuring only expected values are accepted. Additionally, apply proper output encoding when user input is used in HTML contexts to prevent injection.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-26156 — 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-2022-26156 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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