CVE-2022-40131

Page View Count <= 2.5.5 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2022-10-13 00:00
Kévin Mosbahi (Mika)

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.5.6
Affected Plugin
Page View Count
Affected Version
<= 2.5.5
CVSS
8.8High
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2022-40131
View all Page View Count vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2022-40131 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Page View Count WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.5.5. 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 2.5.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2022, reported by Kévin Mosbahi (Mika).

Vulnerability Overview

The Page View Count plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.5.5. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the reset_settings function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to reset the plugin's settings, via 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. 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 Page View Count <= 2.5.5 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 Page View Count the fix is 2.5.6: builds <= 2.5.5 are affected, anything from 2.5.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.5.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Page View Count: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Page View Count 2.5.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-40131https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/2b881c73-2dfc-4b73-99f3-33432b750efdhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-40131

Related records

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