CVE-2023-5611

Seraphinite Accelerator (Base, cache only) <= 2.20.31 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2023-10-29 00:00
Erwan LR

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.20.32
Affected Plugin
Seraphinite Accelerator
Affected Version
<= 2.20.31
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-5611
View all Seraphinite Accelerator vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-5611 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Seraphinite Accelerator WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.20.31. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.20.32; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2023, reported by Erwan LR.

Vulnerability Overview

The Seraphinite Accelerator plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 2.20.31. This is due to missing nonce validation on the 'reset' case of the Init() function, the 'settImport' case of the _on_admin_action_act() function, and the OnInitAdminMode() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to save, reset, and import 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)

Seraphinite Accelerator <= 2.20.31 carries this weakness at reset, 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. For Seraphinite Accelerator the fix is 2.20.32: builds <= 2.20.31 are affected, anything from 2.20.32 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.20.32, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Seraphinite Accelerator: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Seraphinite Accelerator 2.20.32 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-5611https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d2b32fdc-b73f-48e5-88bf-e836ec2f791fhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-5611

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C