Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.8.2
- Affected Version
<= 1.8.1- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2020-8658
At a glance
CVE-2020-8658 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Htaccess by BestWebSoft WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.8.1. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.8.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2020, reported by V1n1v131r4.
Vulnerability Overview
The BestWebSoft Htaccess plugin through 1.8.1 for WordPress allows wp-admin/admin.php?page=htaccess.php&action=htaccess_editor CSRF. The flag htccss_nonce_name passes the nonce to WordPress but the plugin does not validate it correctly, resulting in a wrong implementation of anti-CSRF protection. In this way, an attacker is able to direct the victim to a malicious web page that modifies the .htaccess file, and takes control of the website.
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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in Htaccess by BestWebSoft <= 1.8.1 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 Htaccess by BestWebSoft the fix is 1.8.2: builds <= 1.8.1 are affected, anything from 1.8.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.8.2, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Htaccess by BestWebSoft: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Htaccess by BestWebSoft 1.8.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Htaccess by BestWebSoft – WordPress Website Access Control Plugin
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