CVE-2020-35946

All in One SEO Pack <= 3.6.1 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2020-07-16 00:00
Chloe Chamberland

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.6.2
Affected Plugin
All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights)
Affected Version
< 3.6.2
CVSS
6.4Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2020-35946
View all All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights) vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2020-35946 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the All in One SEO WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 3.6.2. It carries a CVSS score of 6.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 3.6.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2020, reported by Chloe Chamberland.

Vulnerability Overview

An issue was discovered in the All in One SEO Pack plugin before 3.6.2 for WordPress. The SEO Description and Title fields are vulnerable to unsanitized input from a Contributor, leading to stored XSS.

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 interaction from a victim user.

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

Reaching this weakness in All in One SEO < 3.6.2 takes an account at Contributor level or above. 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 All in One SEO the fix is 3.6.2: builds < 3.6.2 are affected, anything from 3.6.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.6.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Contributor access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: All in One SEO 3.6.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-35946https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/440242e5-832f-4796-9317-b377e1c2fa2ahttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-35946

Related records

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