CVE-2023-4837
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 · uneditedSmodBIP is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery, that could be used to induce logged in users to perform unintended actions, including creation of additional accounts with administrative privileges. This issue affects all versions of SmodBIP. SmodBIP is no longer maintained and the vulnerability will not be fixed.
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 confidenceSmodBIP contains a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability affecting all versions. The flaw allows attackers to craft malicious requests that trick authenticated users' browsers into performing unauthorized actions, specifically including the creation of additional user accounts with administrative privileges. This is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) vulnerability that exploits the lack of CSRF tokens or anti-CSRF protections on state-changing operations.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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 SmodBIP is deployedIdentify if SmodBIP is running in your environment by checking web server logs, running processes, or inspecting the application's login page and HTML source for 'SmodBIP' or 'bip' branding in the page title or footer.Affected if SmodBIP software is present in the environment, regardless of version, since all versions are affected.
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Identify the installed versionCheck the application footer, about page, or configuration files for a version number. Also check any package.json, composer.json, or version metadata files if accessible via the web server.Affected if Any version of SmodBIP is found, as all versions lack CSRF protection.
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Inspect user creation form for CSRF tokensNavigate to the admin panel and access the user creation or registration form. View the page source (right-click > View Page Source) and search for 'csrf', 'token', or 'anticsrf' in the form HTML. Check if a hidden input field with a token value exists.Affected if The user creation form lacks a CSRF token field (input name containing 'csrf' or 'token'), indicating the vulnerability is present.
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Check SameSite cookie attributeOpen browser developer tools (F12), go to the Application/Storage tab, and examine cookies set by the SmodBIP domain. Check the SameSite attribute for session cookies.Affected if Session cookies have no SameSite attribute set or are set to 'None' without Secure flag, leaving users vulnerable to CSRF attacks.
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Verify WAF or proxy CSRF mitigationInspect any web application firewall (WAF), reverse proxy, or application gateway configuration for CSRF-specific rules or protections. Check if the proxy adds CSRF tokens on behalf of the application.Affected if No WAF, proxy, or external CSRF protection layer is configured in front of SmodBIP.
If SmodBIP is deployed in any capacity without external CSRF protections, the environment is affected because all versions lack built-in anti-CSRF mechanisms on state-changing operations like administrative user creation.
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.
dbcve · scopedSince SmodBIP is unmaintained and will not receive official patches, immediate mitigation requires either decommissioning the software or implementing CSRF protections at the application level (adding anti-CSRF tokens to all forms and state-changing endpoints) or via a WAF/proxy layer with CSRF inspection capabilities. Additionally, configure SameSite cookies and restrict administrative access to trusted IP ranges.
- This vulnerability will not be patched as SmodBIP is no longer maintained.
- Evaluate whether SmodBIP is still required in your environment; consider migrating to an actively maintained alternative.
- If continued use is mandatory, implement CSRF protection at the web application firewall (WAF) layer to mitigate the attack vector.
- Review and monitor administrative accounts for unauthorized creations as a compensating control.
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation8.0 h
- Implementation16.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-4837 — 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-2023-4837 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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