CVE-2023-49164

Ocean Extra <= 2.2.2 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Arbitrary Plugin Activation

2023-11-28 00:00
Dave Jong

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.2.3
Affected Plugin
Ocean Extra
Affected Version
<= 2.2.2
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-49164
View all Ocean Extra vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-49164 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Ocean Extra WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.2.2. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.2.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2023, reported by Dave Jong.

Vulnerability Overview

The Ocean Extra plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 2.2.2. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the ajax_required_plugins_activate() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to activate arbitrary plugins 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)

Ocean Extra <= 2.2.2 carries this weakness at ajax_required_plugins_activate(), and reaching it 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 Ocean Extra the fix is 2.2.3: builds <= 2.2.2 are affected, anything from 2.2.3 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.2.3, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Ocean Extra: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Ocean Extra 2.2.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-49164https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ac111175-2059-41dc-afa2-a659da3adacahttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-49164

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C