CVE-2024-35684

ElasticPress <= 5.1.0 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2024-06-06 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 5.1.1
Affected Plugin: ElasticPress
Affected Version: <= 5.1.0
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2024-35684

At a glance

CVE-2024-35684 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the ElasticPress WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.1.0. 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 5.1.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2024, reported by Ananda Dhakal.

Vulnerability Overview

The ElasticPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 5.1.0. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the do_sync function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to sync data 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)

Reaching this weakness in ElasticPress <= 5.1.0 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 ElasticPress the fix is 5.1.1: builds <= 5.1.0 are affected, anything from 5.1.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.1.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to ElasticPress: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: ElasticPress 5.1.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-35684 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/1171a510-ae5c-4f8e-99a2-aa98cf54d82e https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-35684

Related records

Same weakness class

4.3CVE-2021-4405: ElasticPress <= 3.5.3 Cross-Site Request Forgery BypassCVE-2021-4405

Other vulnerabilities in ElasticPress

CVSS Vector

4.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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