Absolute Reviews <= 1.0.8 - Cross-Site Request Forgery Bypass
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.0.9
- Affected Plugin
- Absolute Reviews
- Affected Version
<= 1.0.8- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2021-4426
At a glance
CVE-2021-4426 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Absolute Reviews WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0.8. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.0.9; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2021, reported by Jerome Bruandet.
Vulnerability Overview
The Absolute Reviews plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 1.0.8. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the metabox_review_save() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to save meta tags via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.
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.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Absolute Reviews <= 1.0.8 carries this weakness at metabox_review_save(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.
An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For Absolute Reviews the fix is 1.0.9: builds <= 1.0.8 are affected, anything from 1.0.9 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.0.9, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Absolute Reviews: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Absolute Reviews 1.0.9 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Absolute Reviews
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