Dynamic Word Spinner: CSS3 Animated Rotation <= 5.6 - Cross-Site Request Forgery
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 5.7
- Affected Plugin
- SmartText Rotator – Add Motion to Your Words
- Affected Version
<= 5.6- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2024-38753
At a glance
CVE-2024-38753 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the SmartText Rotator WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.6. 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 5.7; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2024, reported by Majed Refaea.
Vulnerability Overview
The Dynamic Word Spinner: CSS3 Animated Rotation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 5.6. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the save_admin_options() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to update plugin settings 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)
SmartText Rotator <= 5.6 carries this weakness at save_admin_options(), 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 SmartText Rotator the fix is 5.7: builds <= 5.6 are affected, anything from 5.7 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 5.7, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to SmartText Rotator: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: SmartText Rotator 5.7 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in SmartText Rotator – Add Motion to Your Words
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