CVE-2026-37345: Critical SQL Injection in Vehicle Parking Area Management

CVE-2026-37345: SQL Injection in Vehicle Parking Area Management System

A critical SQL injection vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-37345 has been disclosed in SourceCodester Vehicle Parking Area Management System v1.0, a PHP application used to manage vehicle parking records, bay assignments, and administrative operations. The flaw exists in the parking management endpoint and allows remote attackers without any authentication to execute arbitrary SQL commands against the backend database.

This vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8 (Critical) — the highest-severity rating in this batch of SourceCodester disclosures — and falls under CWE-89 — Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in SQL Commands (SQL Injection).

Vulnerability Overview

Technical Details

Affected Component

The vulnerability is located in the parking management interface at /parking/manage_park.php. This endpoint handles CRUD operations for parking bay records — including adding, updating, and viewing parking spaces — and passes user-supplied parameters directly into SQL queries without sanitization.

Exploitation Mechanism

Attackers can interact with the vulnerable endpoint by sending SQL payloads through query string or POST body parameters:

GET /parking/manage_park.php?id=1' OR '1'='1 HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com

-- Or for data extraction:
GET /parking/manage_park.php?id=1 UNION SELECT NULL,username,password,NULL,NULL FROM admin_users-- HTTP/1.1

Successful exploitation enables:

• Full database read access — enumerate all tables and extract records
• Administrative credential theft — dump admin usernames and password hashes
• Parking record manipulation — modify or delete vehicle registration and payment records
• Privilege escalation — with admin credentials, gain full application control
• Lateral movement — if the database user has FILE privileges, read system files

Why CVSS 9.8 vs. Other SourceCodester CVEs

The higher-than-average CVSS score reflects that this endpoint appears to operate without any authentication gate, meaning the attack surface is fully exposed to the public internet without requiring even a basic login to reach the vulnerable parameter.

Attack Flow

1. Attacker discovers a SourceCodester Vehicle Parking deployment via search engine or shodan

2. Attacker sends UNION-based or Boolean-based SQL injection to /parking/manage_park.php

3. The PHP code interpolates the attacker's payload directly into a MySQL query string

4. The database returns results — attacker reads admin credentials, vehicle records, payment data

5. Attacker authenticates as admin and assumes full control of the parking management system

6. Vehicle registration data, payment history, and admin credentials are exfiltrated

Broader Impact: Parking and Fleet Data

Vehicle parking management systems commonly store:

• Vehicle registration data — license plates, VINs, owner information
• Payment records — parking fees, payment methods, transaction history
• User account data — employee or tenant credentials and contact details
• Access control records — entry/exit logs, bay assignments, permit data

Operators in commercial or residential contexts may also integrate these systems with physical access barriers, adding a physical security dimension to the data breach risk.

Remediation

SourceCodester has not released a patch. Immediate mitigations include:

Access Restriction

# Nginx: block unauthenticated access to manage_park.php
location = /parking/manage_park.php {
    auth_basic "Restricted";
    auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd;
}

Code-Level Fix

// Vulnerable pattern
$id = $_GET['id'];
$query = "SELECT * FROM parking WHERE id = '$id'";
 
// Secure pattern using prepared statements
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM parking WHERE id = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("i", $_GET['id']);
$stmt->execute();

WAF Rules

Block common SQL injection metacharacters at the application gateway:

UNION|SELECT|INSERT|UPDATE|DELETE|DROP|--|\' (in query parameters)

Impact Assessment

Key Takeaways

1. CVE-2026-37345 is a CVSS 9.8 Critical SQL injection in SourceCodester Vehicle Parking Area Management System 1.0, affecting /parking/manage_park.php
2. No authentication is required to reach the vulnerable endpoint, maximizing attacker accessibility
3. No patch is available — operators should immediately gate access and apply parameterized queries
4. The 9.8 CVSS score is among the highest possible, reflecting a fully unauthenticated network-accessible attack with full database compromise potential
5. SourceCodester applications are frequently deployed by academic institutions and small businesses that may lack dedicated security monitoring

Sources

• CVE-2026-37345 — NIST NVD

Related Reading

• CVE-2026-37338: SQL Injection in Simple Music Cloud Community System
• CVE-2026-37347: SQL Injection in Payroll Management System
• CVE-2026-3740: SQL Injection in University Management System