CVE-2024-4194

Album and Image Gallery plus Lightbox <= 2.0 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Shortcode Execution

2024-06-05 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.1
Affected Plugin: Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox
Affected Version: <= 2.0
CVSS: 6.5Medium
Weakness type: CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
CVE: CVE-2024-4194

View all Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-4194 is a medium-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.0. 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 2.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2024, reported by stealthcopter.

Vulnerability Overview

The The Album and Image Gallery plus Lightbox plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary shortcode execution in all versions up to, and including, 2.0. This is due to the software allowing users to execute an action that does not properly validate a value before running do_shortcode. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary shortcodes.

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-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Reaching this weakness in Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox <= 2.0 takes no account at all. Code injection means input from a request reaches a language construct that evaluates code, so the attacker's text is executed rather than treated as data.

The injected code runs with the web server's privileges, giving the attacker the same access to the database and filesystem as WordPress itself. For Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox the fix is 2.1: builds <= 2.0 are affected, anything from 2.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox 2.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Scanner
Login Security

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-4194 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/4822f1c7-3f83-416c-8957-17e4b53d7e69 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-4194

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Album and Image Gallery Plus Lightbox

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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