CVE-2021-25016

Floating Chat Widget: Contact Icons, Messages, Telegram, Email, SMS, Call Button - Chaty <= 2.8.2 Reflected Cross-Site Scripting

2021-12-06 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.8.3
Affected Plugin: Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button – Chaty
Affected Version: < 2.8.3
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2021-25016

View all Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button – Chaty vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-25016 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.8.3. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.8.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2021, reported by Krzysztof Zając.

Vulnerability Overview

The Chaty WordPress plugin before 2.8.3 and Chaty Pro WordPress plugin before 2.8.2 do not sanitise and escape the search parameter before outputting it back in the admin dashboard, leading to a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting

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 Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button < 2.8.3 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 Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button the fix is 2.8.3: builds < 2.8.3 are affected, anything from 2.8.3 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.8.3, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button 2.8.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-25016 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/0716471e-388c-43e5-abc3-84c78569e61a https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-25016

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button – Chaty

CVSS Vector

6.1

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

Base

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

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