Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) <= 2.0.2 - Cross-Site Request Forgery Bypass
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.0.3
- Affected Plugin
- Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline)
- Affected Version
< 2.0.3- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2020-36738
At a glance
CVE-2020-36738 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.0.3. 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 2.0.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2020, reported by Jerome Bruandet.
Vulnerability Overview
The Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.0.2. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the ctl_save() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to save field icons 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)
Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) < 2.0.3 carries this weakness at ctl_save(), 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 Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) the fix is 2.0.3: builds < 2.0.3 are affected, anything from 2.0.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.0.3, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline): WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) 2.0.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline)
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