CVE-2023-50902

New User Approve <= 2.5.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via admin_notices

2023-12-26 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.5.2
Affected Plugin: New User Approve
Affected Version: <= 2.5.1
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2023-50902

View all New User Approve vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-50902 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the New User Approve WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.5.1. 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 2.5.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2023, reported by R3N0.

Vulnerability Overview

The New User Approve plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 2.5.2. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the admin_notices function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to dismiss admin notices via a 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.

CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Reaching this weakness in New User Approve <= 2.5.1 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 New User Approve the fix is 2.5.2: builds <= 2.5.1 are affected, anything from 2.5.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.5.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to New User Approve: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: New User Approve 2.5.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-50902 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/3abde27c-8234-4146-9e55-ea20b275ca48 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-50902

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in New User Approve

CVSS Vector

6.1

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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