Disable WordPress Update Notifications <= 2.3.3 - Cross-Site Request Forgery
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.4.0
- Affected Version
<= 2.3.3- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2023-34029
At a glance
CVE-2023-34029 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Disable WordPress Update Notifications and auto-update Email Notifications WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.3.3. 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 2.4.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2023, reported by Rio Darmawan.
Vulnerability Overview
The Disable WordPress Update Notifications plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.3.3. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the dwnSettings() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to modify the plugin's settings, 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)
Disable WordPress Update Notifications and auto-update Email Notifications <= 2.3.3 carries this weakness at dwnSettings(), 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 Disable WordPress Update Notifications and auto-update Email Notifications the fix is 2.4.0: builds <= 2.3.3 are affected, anything from 2.4.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.4.0, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Disable WordPress Update Notifications and auto-update Email Notifications: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Disable WordPress Update Notifications and auto-update Email Notifications 2.4.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C