CVE-2024-31235

WordPress Comments Import & Export <= 2.3.5 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2024-04-05 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.3.6
Affected Plugin: Comments Import & Export
Affected Version: <= 2.3.5
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2024-31235

View all Comments Import & Export vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-31235 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Comments Import & Export WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.3.5. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.3.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2024, reported by Dhabaleshwar Das.

Vulnerability Overview

The WordPress Comments Import & Export plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 2.3.5. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the do_export() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to trigger an export 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)

Comments Import & Export <= 2.3.5 carries this weakness at do_export(), 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 Comments Import & Export the fix is 2.3.6: builds <= 2.3.5 are affected, anything from 2.3.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.3.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Comments Import & Export: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Comments Import & Export 2.3.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-31235 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/9269c3e7-2495-4665-ad08-d6dcf659db21 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-31235

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Comments Import & Export

CVSS Vector

4.3

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

Base

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

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