Language Bar Flags <= 1.0.8 - Cross-Site Request Forgery leading to Stored Cross-Site Scripting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.1.0
- Affected Plugin
- Language Bar Flags
- Affected Version
<= 1.0.8- CVSS
- 6.1Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2021-24431
At a glance
CVE-2021-24431 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Language Bar Flags WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0.8. 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 1.1.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2021, reported by Vinay Bhuria.
Vulnerability Overview
The Language Bar Flags WordPress plugin through 1.0.8 does not have any CSRF in place when saving its settings and did not sanitise or escape them when generating the flag bar in the frontend. This could allow attackers to make a logged in admin change the settings, and set Cross-Site Scripting payload in them, which will be executed in the frontend for all users
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 Language Bar Flags <= 1.0.8 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. For Language Bar Flags the fix is 1.1.0: builds <= 1.0.8 are affected, anything from 1.1.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.1.0, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Language Bar Flags: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Language Bar Flags 1.1.0 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