Comment Blacklist Updater <= 1.1.0 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via update_blacklist_manual
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.2.0
- Affected Plugin
- Comment Blacklist Updater
- Affected Version
< 1.2.0- CVSS
- 5.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2023-44147
At a glance
CVE-2023-44147 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Comment Blacklist Updater WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.2.0. 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 1.2.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2023, reported by Nguyen Xuan Chien.
Vulnerability Overview
The Comment Blacklist Updater plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 1.1.0. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the 'update_blacklist_manual' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to update the plugin's settings 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)
Comment Blacklist Updater < 1.2.0 carries this weakness at update_blacklist_manual, and reaching it 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 Comment Blacklist Updater the fix is 1.2.0: builds < 1.2.0 are affected, anything from 1.2.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.2.0, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Comment Blacklist Updater: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Comment Blacklist Updater 1.2.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C