Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 3.1
- Affected Plugin
- Keyword Meta
- Affected Version
<= 3.0- CVSS
- 6.1Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2021-24611
At a glance
CVE-2021-24611 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Keyword Meta WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.0. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2021, reported by Genubhau Wayal.
Vulnerability Overview
The Keyword Meta WordPress plugin through 3.0 does not sanitise of escape its settings before outputting them back in the page after they are saved, allowing for Cross-Site Scripting issues. Furthermore, it is also lacking any CSRF check, allowing attacker to make a logged in high privilege user save arbitrary setting via a CSRF attack.
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 Keyword Meta <= 3.0 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. For Keyword Meta the fix is 3.1: builds <= 3.0 are affected, anything from 3.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 3.1, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Keyword Meta: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Keyword Meta 3.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C