Helpful <= 4.4.58 - Admin+ Stored Cross-Site Scripting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 4.4.59
- Affected Plugin
- Helpful
- Affected Version
< 4.4.59- CVSS
- 5.5Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2021-24841
At a glance
CVE-2021-24841 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Helpful WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 4.4.59. It carries a CVSS score of 5.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 4.4.59; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2021, reported by Kévin Mosbahi (Mika).
Vulnerability Overview
The Helpful WordPress plugin before 4.4.59 does not sanitise and escape some of its settings, which could allow high privilege users to perform Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed
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 interaction from a victim user.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Reaching this weakness in Helpful < 4.4.59 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. 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. For Helpful the fix is 4.4.59: builds < 4.4.59 are affected, anything from 4.4.59 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 4.4.59, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Helpful: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Helpful 4.4.59 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
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