CVE-2019-20181

Awesome Support – WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin <= 6.0.13 - Cross-Site Scripting via post_title

2020-01-06 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 6.0.14
Affected Plugin: Awesome Support – WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin
Affected Version: <= 6.0.13
CVSS: 4.8Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2019-20181

View all Awesome Support – WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2019-20181 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Awesome Support WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 6.0.13. It carries a CVSS score of 4.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 6.0.14; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2020, reported by 0xPablito.

Vulnerability Overview

The awesome-support plugin 6.0.13 and below for WordPress allows XSS via the post_title parameter.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed.

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

Reaching this weakness in Awesome Support <= 6.0.13 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. 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 Awesome Support the fix is 6.0.14: builds <= 6.0.13 are affected, anything from 6.0.14 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 6.0.14, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Awesome Support: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Awesome Support 6.0.14 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-20181 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/e52f799e-9174-45a2-9ed6-7aedb26b36bd https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-20181

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Awesome Support – WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin

CVSS Vector

4.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredHigh
User InteractionRequired
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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