CVE-2016-15041

MainWP Dashboard – The Private WordPress Manager for Multiple Website Maintenance Plugin <= 3.1.2 - Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2016-04-29 00:00
Jouko Pynnöne

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.1.3
Affected Plugin
MainWP Dashboard: Self-hosted WordPress Management for Agencies
Affected Version
< 3.1.3
CVSS
7.2High
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2016-15041
View all MainWP Dashboard: Self-hosted WordPress Management for Agencies vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2016-15041 is a high-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the MainWP Dashboard WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 3.1.3. It carries a CVSS score of 7.2 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.1.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2016, reported by Jouko Pynnöne.

Vulnerability Overview

The MainWP Dashboard – The Private WordPress Manager for Multiple Website Maintenance plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘mwp_setup_purchase_username’ parameter in versions up to, and including, 3.1.2 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

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, and no interaction from a victim user.

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

MainWP Dashboard < 3.1.3 carries this weakness at mwp_setup_purchase_username, and reaching it 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 MainWP Dashboard the fix is 3.1.3: builds < 3.1.3 are affected, anything from 3.1.3 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.1.3, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to MainWP Dashboard: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: MainWP Dashboard 3.1.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-15041https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a9b1445f-3b6b-40fa-9a12-f55d63668ddahttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-15041

Related records

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