ALO EasyMail Newsletter <= 2.9.2 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2016-08-01 00:00
Yorick Koster,

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.9.3
Affected Version
< 2.9.3
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE pending
View all ALO EasyMail Newsletter vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the ALO EasyMail Newsletter WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.9.3. 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 2.9.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2016, reported by Yorick Koster,.

Vulnerability Overview

The Alo Easymail plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.9.2. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the import_step2 action. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to import subscriber level users 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)

Reaching this weakness in ALO EasyMail Newsletter < 2.9.3 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 ALO EasyMail Newsletter the fix is 2.9.3: builds < 2.9.3 are affected, anything from 2.9.3 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.9.3, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to ALO EasyMail Newsletter: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: ALO EasyMail Newsletter 2.9.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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