GHSA-p4h7-p9rj-2pq2

Описание

Summary

Pheditor ships with a hardcoded default password admin (SHA-512 hash stored at pheditor.php:11). There is no mechanism to force a password change on first login. Any deployment using the default credentials grants an attacker full access to the file editor, file upload, and terminal features, enabling arbitrary file read/write and remote code execution.

Details

Tested repository: https://github.com/pheditor/pheditor

Tested commit: e538f05b6faec99e5b23726bc9c17d6b57774297 (current HEAD on main)

Affected version: All versions of Pheditor

The password is hardcoded at pheditor.php:11:

This is the SHA-512 hash of the string admin:

The application displays a warning banner at pheditor.php:1956-1958 when the default password is in use, but this is only visual — there is no forced password change, no expiry, no lockout, and no setup wizard. Many deployments run with the default indefinitely.

The password hash is stored as unsalted SHA-512 in the source code. The password change feature (lines 363-391) writes the new hash directly into the PHP source file, meaning anyone with read access to the source can extract it.

Combined impact: With the default password, an unauthenticated attacker can authenticate and exploit the terminal RCE and file upload vulnerabilities for immediate server compromise.

PoC

Environment: Any system running Pheditor with default configuration.

Setup:

Positive trigger — authenticate with default password:

Expected: 200 — successful authentication with the default password admin.

Verify full access:

Expected: id output showing web server user — proves full system access through default credentials combined with terminal RCE.

Control (wrong password):

Expected: not correct — authentication logic works but default password is trivially guessable.

Cleanup:

Impact

Use of Hard-coded Credentials (CWE-798). The default password admin is publicly documented in the source code, trivially guessable, and there is no mechanism to force a password change on first login. This effectively grants unauthenticated remote attackers full administrator access to the application.

Attacker privileges: Unauthenticated remote attacker (PR:N).

Security boundary crossed: Unauthenticated → fully authenticated administrator.

Confidentiality impact: High — read all files within MAIN_DIR and beyond (via terminal).

Integrity impact: High — write/delete files, upload webshells, modify application code, execute arbitrary commands.

Availability impact: High — delete files and directories, disrupt services.

Suggested remediation:

1. Remove the default password — require user to set a password during installation.
2. Add a setup wizard that forces password creation on first access.
3. Add a forced password change on first login with default credentials.
4. Use password_hash() / password_verify() with PASSWORD_BCRYPT instead of raw SHA-512.

Credits

• Thai Son Dinh from VinSOC Labs (R&D)