CVE-2022-3121
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 · uneditedA vulnerability was found in SourceCodester Online Employee Leave Management System 1.0. It has been declared as problematic. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file /admin/addemployee.php. The manipulation leads to cross-site request forgery. The attack can be launched remotely. The identifier VDB-207853 was assigned to this vulnerability.
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 confidenceA Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability exists in the /admin/addemployee.php functionality of SourceCodester Online Employee Leave Management System 1.0. The application lacks proper anti-CSRF token validation, allowing remote attackers to trick authenticated administrators into unknowingly executing unintended actions such as adding unauthorized employee accounts.
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= 1.0CVSS 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:3.1/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.
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Confirm the application versionLocate and read the version identifier for the SourceCodester Online Employee Leave Management System (typically in a README, about page, or configuration file). Compare against the affected version 1.0.Affected if The installed version is 1.0 and matches the affected product exactly.
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Verify addemployee.php exists and is accessibleCheck if the file /admin/addemployee.php exists in the web root or admin directory of the deployed application. Attempt to access it via HTTP request to confirm the endpoint is reachable.Affected if The file exists and is accessible to authenticated administrators.
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Inspect the form for anti-CSRF tokensOpen the addemployee.php page in a browser or retrieve its source code via curl/wget. Examine the HTML form for any hidden input field containing a token value (such as 'csrf_token', 'token', or 'csrfmiddlewaretoken'). Also check if the form includes any JavaScript-based token validation.Affected if The form lacks any anti-CSRF token mechanism - no hidden token fields are present in the HTML.
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Check session cookie SameSite attributeLog into the application as an administrator and inspect the session cookie Set-Cookie headers (via browser DevTools > Application > Cookies or via curl -v). Look for the 'SameSite' attribute on the session cookie.Affected if The session cookie either lacks a SameSite attribute or is set to 'None' without Secure flag.
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Verify server-side Origin/Referer validationExamine the server-side code for addemployee.php (or the included controller/handler). Look for code that validates the Origin or Referer HTTP headers before processing the form submission.Affected if No server-side validation of Origin or Referer headers exists in the request handling logic.
A user is affected if they run version 1.0 of the Online Employee Leave Management System and the /admin/addemployee.php form is missing anti-CSRF token validation in both the HTML form and server-side processing.
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 (synchronizer token pattern) on all state-changing forms including addemployee.php, validate Origin/Referer headers server-side, and set SameSite attributes on session cookies to prevent cross-origin requests.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-3121 — 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-2022-3121 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
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