CVE-2023-28784

Contest Gallery <= 21.1.2 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting

2023-03-27 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 21.1.2.1
Affected Plugin: Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe
Affected Version: <= 21.1.2
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2023-28784

View all Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-28784 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Contest Gallery WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 21.1.2. 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 21.1.2.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2023, reported by thiennv.

Vulnerability Overview

The Contest Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via an unknown parameter in versions up to, and including, 21.1.2 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers 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 privileges on the target site.

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Reaching this weakness in Contest Gallery <= 21.1.2 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 Contest Gallery the fix is 21.1.2.1: builds <= 21.1.2 are affected, anything from 21.1.2.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 21.1.2.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Contest Gallery: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Contest Gallery 21.1.2.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-28784 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/7dbd3b23-cebc-4212-bcae-c6f23031c040 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-28784

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe

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

This record contains material that is subject to copyright

CVE Usage: MITRE hereby grants you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE®). Any copy you make for such purposes is authorized provided that you reproduce MITRE's copyright designation and this license in any such copy.

https://www.cve.org/Legal/TermsOfUse

Defiant hereby grants you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute this software vulnerability information. Any copy of the software vulnerability information you make for such purposes is authorized provided that you include a hyperlink to this vulnerability record and reproduce Defiant's copyright designation and this license in any such copy.

https://www.wordfence.com/wordfence-intelligence-terms-and-conditions/