Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.3
- Affected Plugin
- Testimonial
- Affected Version
< 2.3- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2013-5672
At a glance
CVE-2013-5672 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Testimonial WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.3. 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 2.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2013, reported by Adéla Goldová.
Vulnerability Overview
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the IndiaNIC Testimonial plugin 2.2 for WordPress allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that (1) add a testimonial via an iNIC_testimonial_save action; (2) add a listing template via an iNIC_testimonial_save_listing_template action; (3) add a widget template via an iNIC_testimonial_save_widget action; insert cross-site scripting (XSS) sequences via the (4) project_name, (5) project_url, (6) client_name, (7) client_city, (8) client_state, (9) description, (10) tags, (11) video_url, or (12) is_featured, (13) title, (14) widget_title, (15) no_of_testimonials, (16) filter_by_country, (17) filter_by_tags, or (18) widget_template parameter to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php.
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 Testimonial < 2.3 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 Testimonial the fix is 2.3: builds < 2.3 are affected, anything from 2.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.3, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Testimonial: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Testimonial 2.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
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