My Category Order <= 4.3 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Cross-Site Scripting

2015-08-13 00:00
Marcin Probola

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 4.4.2
Affected Plugin
my-category-order
Affected Version
<= 4.3
CVSS
8.8High
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE pending
View all my-category-order vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the my-category-order WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.3. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 4.4.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2015, reported by Marcin Probola.

Vulnerability Overview

The My Category Order plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 4.3 due to missing nonce validation. This makes it possible for attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts that execute in a victim's browser granted they can trick a site's 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 my-category-order <= 4.3 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. For my-category-order the fix is 4.4.2: builds <= 4.3 are affected, anything from 4.4.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.4.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to my-category-order: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: my-category-order 4.4.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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