CVE-2015-9229

WordPress Gallery Plugin – NextGEN Gallery <= 2.1.15 - Authenticated (Admin+) Cross-Site Scripting

2015-09-14 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.1.23
Affected Plugin: Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes – NextGEN Gallery
Affected Version: <= 2.1.15
CVSS: 5.5Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2015-9229

View all Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes – NextGEN Gallery vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2015-9229 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.1.15. It carries a CVSS score of 5.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Admin level or above. The issue is fixed in version 2.1.23; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2015, reported by cybersecurityworks.

Vulnerability Overview

In the nggallery-manage-gallery page in the Photocrati NextGEN Gallery plugin 2.1.15 for WordPress, XSS is possible for remote authenticated administrators via the images[1][alttext] parameter.

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 interaction from a victim user.

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

Reaching this weakness in Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes <= 2.1.15 takes an account at Admin level or above. 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 Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes the fix is 2.1.23: builds <= 2.1.15 are affected, anything from 2.1.23 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.1.23, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Admin access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes 2.1.23 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2015-9229 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/10d861c2-8ebf-4ba8-a493-0ab3aa43aa76 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9229

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes – NextGEN Gallery

CVSS Vector

5.5

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredHigh
User InteractionNone
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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