Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta <= 2.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta
- Affected Version
<= 2.1- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2023-41650
At a glance
CVE-2023-41650 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.1. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed September 2023, reported by Rio Darmawan.
Vulnerability Overview
The Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.1. This is due to missing nonce validation on the remove_a_d_c() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to update the plugin's settings 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)
Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta <= 2.1 carries this weakness at remove_a_d_c(), and reaching it 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta yet, so installs running <= 2.1 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 Remove/hide Author, Date, Category Like Entry-Meta: 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