PatchSiren

PatchSiren cyber security CVE debrief

CVE-2017-6479 Fenix Hosting CVE debrief

CVE-2017-6479 describes a reflected cross-site scripting issue in Fenix Hosting's fenix-open-source application, affecting forums/search.php and the search-by-topic parameter. The CVE was published on 2017-03-05. NVD classifies the weakness as CWE-79 and assigns a CVSS 3.0 vector of AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N, which means exploitation is possible over the network, requires no privileges, but does require user interaction. The supplied corpus indicates a vulnerable range ending at 2017-02-21, while the description says versions before 2017-03-04 are affected; treat those dates as source-specific and verify against the vendor's fix history.

Vendor
Fenix Hosting
Product
CVE-2017-6479
CVSS
MEDIUM 6.1
CISA KEV
Not listed in stored evidence
Original CVE published
2017-03-05
Original CVE updated
2026-05-13
Advisory published
2017-03-05
Advisory updated
2026-05-13

Who should care

Administrators and maintainers of Fenix Hosting fenix-open-source deployments, especially any public forums/search.php endpoint exposed to untrusted users. Security teams responsible for web application hardening and browser-side risk reduction should also review affected instances.

Technical summary

The flaw is a reflected XSS in forums/search.php driven by the search-by-topic parameter. NVD maps it to CWE-79 and lists CVSS 3.0 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N. The corpus shows the issue affecting fenix-open-source builds in the pre-fix range cited by the description and NVD CPE data.

Defensive priority

Medium priority. Reflected XSS can expose user-controlled browser context or trigger unwanted actions, but it depends on a victim following a crafted request and interacting with the affected page.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Identify all fenix-open-source deployments and confirm whether they fall within the vulnerable version range cited in the source corpus.
  • Upgrade to a vendor-fixed release or otherwise remove or disable the affected code path if an official fix is not available.
  • Review forums/search.php input handling and ensure search-by-topic output is contextually encoded before rendering.
  • Validate that reverse proxy, WAF, or application-layer controls do not hide the vulnerable endpoint during testing.
  • Add regression tests for reflected XSS on search endpoints and monitor logs for unexpected script-bearing parameters.

Evidence notes

The CVE description states: 'FenixHosting/fenix-open-source before 2017-03-04 is vulnerable to a reflected XSS in forums/search.php (search-by-topic parameter).' NVD records the weakness as CWE-79 and includes a vulnerable CPE range ending in 2017-02-21. The supplied references include SecurityFocus BID 96587 and a GitHub issue tagged as Exploit and Vendor Advisory. No KEV entry is present in the supplied corpus.

Official resources

Publicly disclosed through the CVE record published on 2017-03-05. The supplied corpus includes official NVD and CVE.org records and does not list a KEV entry.