Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- Project Status
- Affected Version
<= 1.6- CVSS
- 5.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2021-24558
At a glance
CVE-2021-24558 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Project Status WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.6. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed July 2021, reported by Shreya Pohekar.
Vulnerability Overview
The pspin_duplicate_post_save_as_new_post function of the Project Status WordPress plugin through 1.6 does not sanitise, validate or escape the post GET parameter passed to it before outputting it in an error message when the related post does not exist, leading to a reflected XSS issue
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Reaching this weakness in Project Status <= 1.6 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Project Status yet, so installs running <= 1.6 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Project Status: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C