iThemes Security < 5.3.5 - Authenticated Cross-Site Scripting

2016-04-05 00:00
PenTest Partners

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.3.5
Affected Plugin
Kadence Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection
Affected Version
< 5.3.5
CVSS
3.3Low
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE pending
View all Kadence Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a low-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Kadence Security WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 5.3.5. It carries a CVSS score of 3.3 (reachable over the network). Exploitation requires an authenticated account. The issue is fixed in version 5.3.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2016, reported by PenTest Partners.

Vulnerability Overview

The iThemes Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 5.3.4 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, and no interaction from a victim user.

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

Reaching this weakness in Kadence Security < 5.3.5 takes any authenticated account. 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 Kadence Security the fix is 5.3.5: builds < 5.3.5 are affected, anything from 5.3.5 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.3.5, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Kadence Security: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Kadence Security 5.3.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/e9f0689d-aa35-4dfb-b264-5d7378ab1a54

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C