CVE-2023-28986

Affiliates Manager <= 2.9.20 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via process_bulk_action()

2023-03-29 00:00
minhtuanact

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.9.21
Affected Plugin
Affiliates Manager
Affected Version
<= 2.9.20
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-28986
View all Affiliates Manager vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-28986 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Affiliates Manager WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.9.20. 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 2.9.21; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2023, reported by minhtuanact.

Vulnerability Overview

The Affiliates Manager plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.9.20. This is due to missing nonce validation on the process_bulk_action() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to perform bulk modifications of commissions and clicks 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)

Affiliates Manager <= 2.9.20 carries this weakness at process_bulk_action(), 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 Affiliates Manager the fix is 2.9.21: builds <= 2.9.20 are affected, anything from 2.9.21 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.9.21, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Affiliates Manager: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Affiliates Manager 2.9.21 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-28986https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d1a6bdc8-ae74-4d0b-9c47-f4bf69158a44https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-28986

Related records

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