Auto Prune Posts <= 1.8.0 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via admin_menu
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.0.0
- Affected Plugin
- Auto Prune Posts
- Affected Version
<= 1.8.0- CVSS
- 5.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2023-27423
At a glance
CVE-2023-27423 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Auto Prune Posts WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.8.0. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.0.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2023, reported by Kévin Mosbahi (Mika).
Vulnerability Overview
The Auto Prune Posts plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 1.8.0. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the 'admin_menu' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to modify automatic post deletion settings on the site 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)
Auto Prune Posts <= 1.8.0 carries this weakness at admin_menu, 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 Auto Prune Posts the fix is 2.0.0: builds <= 1.8.0 are affected, anything from 2.0.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.0.0, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Auto Prune Posts: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Auto Prune Posts 2.0.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in Auto Prune Posts
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