CVE-2023-45269

Simple SEO <= 2.0.25 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via multiple admin_post functions

2023-10-06 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.0.26
Affected Plugin: Simple SEO
Affected Version: <= 2.0.25
CVSS: 5.4Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2023-45269

At a glance

CVE-2023-45269 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Simple SEO WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.0.25. 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 2.0.26; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2023, reported by Kévin Mosbahi (Mika).

Vulnerability Overview

The Simple SEO plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.0.25. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on multiple admin_post functions. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to import SEO content from other plugins as well as generate and delete sitemaps via a forged request 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)

Reaching this weakness in Simple SEO <= 2.0.25 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 Simple SEO the fix is 2.0.26: builds <= 2.0.25 are affected, anything from 2.0.26 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.0.26, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Simple SEO: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Simple SEO 2.0.26 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-45269 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/053b72c6-07bb-4e9f-ae25-da4bce91ae6e https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-45269

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Simple SEO

CVSS Vector

5.4

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityLow

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