MainWP (Various extensions) - Cross-Site Request Forgery
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- MainWP Broken Link Checker
- Affected Version
<= 4.0- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE pending
At a glance
This record tracks a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the MainWP Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.0. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed January 2023, reported by Patchstack.
Vulnerability Overview
Several MainWP extensions for WordPress are vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery due to missing or incorrect nonce validation. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to invoke functions normally intended for higher-privileged users such as administrators via 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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in MainWP Broken Link Checker <= 4.0 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for MainWP Broken Link Checker yet, so installs running <= 4.0 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 MainWP Broken Link Checker: 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
Other vulnerabilities in MainWP Broken Link Checker
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