CVE-2014-5205

WordPress Core < 3.9.2 - Brute Force of Cross-Site Request Forgery Tokens

2014-08-06 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 3.7.4
Affected Core: WordPress 3.9
Affected Version: 3.7 – 3.9.1 · 4 branches
CVSS: 6.5Medium
Weakness type: CWE-862 · Missing Authorization
CVE: CVE-2014-5205

At a glance

CVE-2014-5205 is a medium-severity Missing Authorization vulnerability in the WordPress 3.9 WordPress release line, affecting 3.7 – 3.9.1 · 4 branches. It carries a CVSS score of 6.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.7.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2014, reported by David Tomaschik.

Vulnerability Overview

wp-includes/pluggable.php in WordPress before 3.9.2 does not use delimiters during concatenation of action values and uid values in CSRF tokens, which makes it easier for remote attackers to bypass a CSRF protection mechanism via a brute-force attack.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-862: Missing Authorization

Reaching this weakness in WordPress 3.9 3.7 – 3.9.1 · 4 branches takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. A missing authorization check means a function is reachable by anyone who can reach the endpoint, because the code never asks whether the caller is allowed to perform the action.

Any user who can reach the endpoint gets to run an action reserved for higher-privileged roles, from reading protected data to changing settings or content. For WordPress 3.9 the fix is 3.7.4: builds 3.7 – 3.9.1 · 4 branches are affected, anything from 3.7.4 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to one of the following versions, or a newer patched version: 3.7.4, 3.8.4, 3.9.2

How does WordSec protect against this?

Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: updating to 3.7.4 is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2014-5205 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ad943111-24c1-4ff9-b34a-aa4e1ee8ee75 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-5205

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WordPress 3.9

CVSS Vector

6.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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