CVE-2023-31235

Participants Database <= 2.4.9 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via _process_general

2023-05-03 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.5.0
Affected Plugin: Participants Database
Affected Version: <= 2.4.9
CVSS: 5.4Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2023-31235

View all Participants Database vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-31235 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Participants Database WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.4.9. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.5.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2023, reported by Skalucy.

Vulnerability Overview

The Participants Database plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.4.9. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the _process_general function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to process changes to lists 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 Participants Database <= 2.4.9 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 Participants Database the fix is 2.5.0: builds <= 2.4.9 are affected, anything from 2.5.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.5.0, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Participants Database: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Participants Database 2.5.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-31235 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a7ce9573-eda5-45c0-8775-966f2fbe9496 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-31235

Related records

Same weakness class

4.3CVE-2022-47612: Participants Database <= 2.4.5 CSRFCVE-2022-47612

Other vulnerabilities in Participants Database

CVSS Vector

5.4

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityLow

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