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Cross-Site Request Forgery occurrences in Shield
Shield is an authentication and authorization framework for CodeIgniter 4. This vulnerability may allow [SameSite Attackers](https://canitakeyoursubdomain.name/) to bypass the [CodeIgniter4 CSRF protection](https://codeigniter4.github.io/userguide/libraries/security.html) mechanism with CodeIgniter Shield. For this attack to succeed, the attacker must have direct (or indirect, e.g., XSS) control over a subdomain site (e.g., `https://a.example.com/`) of the target site (e.g., `http://example.com/`). Upgrade to **CodeIgniter v4.2.3 or later** and **Shield v1.0.0-beta.2 or later**. As a workaround: set `Config\Security::$csrfProtection` to `'session,'`remove old session data right after login (immediately after ID and password match) and regenerate CSRF token right after login (immediately after ID and password match) (2022-08-12, CVE-2022-35943)
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.