Crypto <= 2.15 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Authentication Bypass
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.16
- Affected Plugin
- Crypto
- Affected Version
<= 2.15- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2024-9990
At a glance
CVE-2024-9990 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Crypto WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.15. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.16; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2024, reported by István Márton.
Vulnerability Overview
The Crypto plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.15. This is due to missing nonce validation in the 'crypto_connect_ajax_process::check' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as any existing user on the site, such as an administrator 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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in Crypto <= 2.15 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 Crypto the fix is 2.16: builds <= 2.15 are affected, anything from 2.16 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.16, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Crypto: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Crypto 2.16 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Crypto
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