Connections Business Directory <= 10.4.36 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Shortcode
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 10.4.37
- Affected Plugin
- Connections Business Directory
- Affected Version
<= 10.4.36- CVSS
- 5.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2023-29437
At a glance
CVE-2023-29437 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Connections Business Directory WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 10.4.36. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 10.4.37; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2023, reported by Rafshanzani Suhada.
Vulnerability Overview
The Connections Business Directory plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'connections' and 'upcoming_list' shortcodes in versions up to, and including, 10.4.36 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
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')
Connections Business Directory <= 10.4.36 carries this weakness at connections, and reaching it takes an account at Contributor 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 Connections Business Directory the fix is 10.4.37: builds <= 10.4.36 are affected, anything from 10.4.37 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 10.4.37, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Contributor 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: Connections Business Directory 10.4.37 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
- 6.1CVE-2016-0770: Connections Business Directory < 8.5.9 XSS
CVE-2016-0770 - 6.1Connections Business Directory < 0.7.9.4 Cross-Site Scripting
- 6.1CVE-2011-5254: Connections Business Directory Authorization Bypass
CVE-2011-5254 - 5.5CVE-2021-24794: Connections Business Directory Admin+ Stored XSS
CVE-2021-24794
Other vulnerabilities in Connections Business Directory
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C