CVE-2022-25858

terser (JS Package) < 5.14.2 - Denial of Service

2022-07-14 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 4.3.0
Affected Plugin: ElasticPress
Affected Version: <= 4.2.2
CVSS: 3.7Low
Weakness type: CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVE: CVE-2022-25858

At a glance

CVE-2022-25858 is a low-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the ElasticPress WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.2.2. It carries a CVSS score of 3.7 (reachable over the network). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 4.3.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2022.

Vulnerability Overview

The package terser before 4.8.1, from 5.0.0 and before 5.14.2 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) due to insecure usage of regular expressions. Some WordPress plugins and themes use this dependency, however, are not vulnerable to exploitation.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Reaching this weakness in ElasticPress <= 4.2.2 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Uncontrolled resource consumption means a request can make the server do an amount of work it never bounds, because the size or repetition of the job is taken from the request rather than capped by the code.

A single caller can hold PHP workers, database connections or disk open long enough to slow the site for everyone, without needing any account or any other flaw. For ElasticPress the fix is 4.3.0: builds <= 4.2.2 are affected, anything from 4.3.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.3.0, 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 4.3.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-25858 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/f1c08c10-7358-4618-b892-7d222ba460de https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-25858

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in ElasticPress

CVSS Vector

3.7

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityHigh
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityNone
AvailabilityLow

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