Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system <= 1.5.2 - Unauthenticated Blind SQL Injection
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.5.3
- Affected Plugin
- Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system
- Affected Version
< 1.5.3- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-89 · Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')
- CVE
CVE-2021-24442
At a glance
CVE-2021-24442 is a critical-severity Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection') vulnerability in the Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.5.3. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.5.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2021, reported by Toby Jackson.
Vulnerability Overview
The Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system WordPress plugin before 1.5.3 did not sanitise, escape or validate the date_answers[] POST parameter before using it in a SQL statement when sending a Poll result, allowing unauthenticated users to perform SQL Injection attacks
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, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-89: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')
Reaching this weakness in Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system < 1.5.3 takes no account at all. SQL injection happens when request data is concatenated into a query instead of being bound as a parameter, letting an attacker change the structure of the statement rather than just its values.
A working injection can read any table the database user can see, which on a WordPress install means user records, password hashes and session or API secrets stored in options. For Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system the fix is 1.5.3: builds < 1.5.3 are affected, anything from 1.5.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.5.3, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system 1.5.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Poll, Survey, Questionnaire and Voting system
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