iThemes Sync <= 2.1.13 - Cross-Site Request Forgery and Missing Authorization via 'hide_authenticate_notice'
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.1.14
- Affected Version
< 2.1.14- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2023-40001
At a glance
CVE-2023-40001 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Kadence Central WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.1.14. 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 2.1.14; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2023, reported by Abdi Pranata.
Vulnerability Overview
The iThemes Sync plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.1.13. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the hide_authenticate_notice function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to hide admin notices via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link. Authorization was also missing, which allowed subscribers to dismiss notices via AJAX request.
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)
Reaching this weakness in Kadence Central < 2.1.14 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 Kadence Central the fix is 2.1.14: builds < 2.1.14 are affected, anything from 2.1.14 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.1.14, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Kadence Central: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Kadence Central 2.1.14 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Kadence Central – Site Management, Backups, Security, and Reporting
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