CVE-2023-2717

Groundhogg <= 2.7.9.8 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Disable All Plugins

2023-05-19 00:00
István Márton

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.7.10
Affected Plugin
Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation
Affected Version
<= 2.7.9.8
CVSS
5.4Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-2717
View all Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-2717 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Groundhogg WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.7.9.8. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.7.10; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2023, reported by István Márton.

Vulnerability Overview

The Groundhogg plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.7.9.8. This is due to missing nonce validation on the 'enable_safe_mode' function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to enable safe mode, which disables all other plugins, via a forged request if they can successfully trick an administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link. A warning message about safe mode is displayed to the admin, which can be easily disabled.

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)

Groundhogg <= 2.7.9.8 carries this weakness at enable_safe_mode, 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 Groundhogg the fix is 2.7.10: builds <= 2.7.9.8 are affected, anything from 2.7.10 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.7.10, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Groundhogg: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Groundhogg 2.7.10 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-2717https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/af73240c-b711-4e91-9998-5f7e6a9a4fb9https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-2717

Related records

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