CVE-2021-36912

Andrea Pernici News Sitemap for Google <= 1.0.16 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2022-05-04 10:07
John Castro

Strategic Overview

Status
Unpatched
Affected Version
<= 1.0.16
CVSS
5.4Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2021-36912
View all Andrea Pernici News Sitemap for Google vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-36912 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Andrea Pernici News Sitemap for Google WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0.16. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed May 2022, reported by John Castro.

Vulnerability Overview

Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Andrea Pernici News Sitemap for Google plugin <= 1.0.16 on WordPress, attackers must have contributor or higher user role.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed.

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Reaching this weakness in Andrea Pernici News Sitemap for Google <= 1.0.16 takes an account at Contributor level or above. Cross-site scripting happens when input from a request is written into a page without being escaped for the context it lands in, so the browser parses attacker-supplied text as markup or script.

Injected script runs with the privileges of whoever views the affected page, which is how these flaws turn into administrator session theft, silent account creation or persistent backdoors in page content. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Andrea Pernici News Sitemap for Google yet, so installs running <= 1.0.16 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.

Remediation

No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Contributor access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C