CVE-2020-36759

Woody code snippets <= 2.3.9 - Cross-Site Request Forgery Bypass

2020-09-16 00:00
Jerome Bruandet

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.3.10
Affected Plugin
Woody Code Snippets – Insert PHP, CSS, JS, and Header/Footer Scripts
Affected Version
< 2.3.10
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2020-36759
View all Woody Code Snippets – Insert PHP, CSS, JS, and Header/Footer Scripts vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2020-36759 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Woody Code Snippets WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.3.10. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.3.10; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2020, reported by Jerome Bruandet.

Vulnerability Overview

The Woody code snippets plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.3.9. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the runActions() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to activate and deactivate snippets via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

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)

Woody Code Snippets < 2.3.10 carries this weakness at runActions(), 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 Woody Code Snippets the fix is 2.3.10: builds < 2.3.10 are affected, anything from 2.3.10 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.3.10, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Woody Code Snippets: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Woody Code Snippets 2.3.10 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-36759https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/e573c0a4-d053-400b-828c-0d0eca880776https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-36759

Related records

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