Ad Inserter <= 1.5.5 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Cross-Site Scripting

2015-08-13 00:00
Marcin Probola

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 1.5.6
Affected Plugin
Ad Inserter – Ad Manager & AdSense Ads
Affected Version
<= 1.5.5
CVSS
4.8Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE pending
View all Ad Inserter – Ad Manager & AdSense Ads vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Ad Inserter WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.5.5. It carries a CVSS score of 4.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 1.5.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2015, reported by Marcin Probola.

Vulnerability Overview

The Ad Inserter plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting via the 'ai-active-tab' parameter in versions up to, and including, 1.5.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping and missing nonce validation. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts that execute in a victim's browser.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed.

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Ad Inserter <= 1.5.5 carries this weakness at ai-active-tab, and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site scripting happens when input from a request is written into a page without being escaped for the context it lands in, so the browser parses attacker-supplied text as markup or script.

Injected script runs with the privileges of whoever views the affected page, which is how these flaws turn into administrator session theft, silent account creation or persistent backdoors in page content. For Ad Inserter the fix is 1.5.6: builds <= 1.5.5 are affected, anything from 1.5.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.5.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Ad Inserter: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Ad Inserter 1.5.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/427c29e6-9bbe-4094-a2a2-46945525f5b3

Related records

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