This article is a part of our Vulnerability Database (back to index)

Cross-Site Request Forgery occurrences in Flask-security-too

The Python "Flask-Security-Too" package is used for adding security features to your Flask application. It is an is a independently maintained version of Flask-Security based on the 3.0.0 version of Flask-Security. In Flask-Security-Too from version 3.3.0 and before version 3.4.5, the /login and /change endpoints can return the authenticated user's authentication token in response to a GET request. Since GET requests aren't protected with a CSRF token, this could lead to a malicious 3rd party site acquiring the authentication token. Version 3.4.5 and version 4.0.0 are patched. As a workaround, if you aren't using authentication tokens - you can set the SECURITY_TOKEN_MAX_AGE to "0" (seconds) which should make the token unusable. (2021-01-11, CVE-2021-21241)

Why Cross-Site Request Forgery can be dangerous

The absence of Anti-CSRF tokens may lead to a Cross-Site Request Forgery attack that can result in executing a specific application action as another logged in user, e.g. steal their account by changing their email and password or silently adding a new admin user account when executed from the administrator account.

The attacker may copy one of your web application forms, e.g. email/password change form.

The webpage will contain a form with the exact set of fields as the original application but with input values already provided and the submit button replaced with a Javascript code causing auto-submission. When the page is accessed the form will be immediately submitted and page contents replaced with a valid content or a redirect to your original application.

One of your application users who is already logged in can be then tricked to navigate to such malicious page e.g. by clicking a link in a phishing email, and the pre-populated form content will be submitted to your application like it would be submitted by your user.

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