CVE-2016-10981

Kento Post View Counter <= 2.8 - Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2016-04-17 00:00
Shravan Kumar

Strategic Overview

Status
Unpatched
Affected Version
<= 2.8
CVSS
6.1Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2016-10981
View all Kento Post View Counter vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2016-10981 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Kento Post View Counter WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.8. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed April 2016, reported by Shravan Kumar.

Vulnerability Overview

The kento-post-view-counter plugin through 2.8 for WordPress has stored XSS via kento_pvc_numbers_lang, kento_pvc_today_text, or kento_pvc_total_text.

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-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Reaching this weakness in Kento Post View Counter <= 2.8 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Kento Post View Counter yet, so installs running <= 2.8 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.

Remediation

No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Kento Post View Counter: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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