Private Google Calendars <= 20231125 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 20240106
- Affected Plugin
- Private Google Calendars
- Affected Version
<= 20231125- CVSS
- 6.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2023-52198
At a glance
CVE-2023-52198 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Private Google Calendars WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 20231125. It carries a CVSS score of 6.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 20240106; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2024, reported by Ngô Thiên An (ancorn_).
Vulnerability Overview
The Private Google Calendars plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 20231125 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
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 Private Google Calendars <= 20231125 takes an account at Contributor 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 Private Google Calendars the fix is 20240106: builds <= 20231125 are affected, anything from 20240106 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 20240106, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Contributor 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: Private Google Calendars 20240106 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Private Google Calendars
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C