CVE-2021-24474

Awesome Weather Widget <= 3.0.2 - Reflected Cross-site Scripting via id Parameter

2021-06-28 00:00
Truoc Phan

Strategic Overview

Status
Unpatched
Affected Plugin
Awesome Weather Widget
Affected Version
<= 3.0.2
CVSS
6.1Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2021-24474
View all Awesome Weather Widget vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24474 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Awesome Weather Widget WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.0.2. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed June 2021, reported by Truoc Phan.

Vulnerability Overview

The Awesome Weather Widget WordPress plugin through 3.0.2 does not sanitize the id parameter of its awesome_weather_refresh AJAX action, leading to an unauthenticated Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability.

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

Reaching this weakness in Awesome Weather Widget <= 3.0.2 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Awesome Weather Widget yet, so installs running <= 3.0.2 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.

Remediation

No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Awesome Weather Widget: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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