CVE-2022-1156

Books & Papers <= 0.20210223 - Authenticated (Admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2022-04-13 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 0.20220219
Affected Plugin: Books & Papers
Affected Version: <= 0.20210223
CVSS: 5.5Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2022-1156

At a glance

CVE-2022-1156 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Books & Papers WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 0.20210223. It carries a CVSS score of 5.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Admin level or above. The issue is fixed in version 0.20220219; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2022, reported by fuzzyap1.

Vulnerability Overview

The Books & Papers WordPress plugin through 0.20210223 does not escape its Custom DB prefix settings, allowing high privilege users to perform Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed

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 interaction from a victim user.

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

Reaching this weakness in Books & Papers <= 0.20210223 takes an account at Admin level or above. 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 Books & Papers the fix is 0.20220219: builds <= 0.20210223 are affected, anything from 0.20220219 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 0.20220219, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Admin access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Books & Papers 0.20220219 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-1156 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/4e51eb56-e2f7-433c-8db7-bcf7539aee29 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-1156

CVSS Vector

5.5

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

Base

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

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