CVE-2024-1983

Simple Ajax Chat <= 20240216 - Unauthenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2024-03-26 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 20240223
Affected Plugin: Simple Ajax Chat – Add a Fast, Secure Chat Box
Affected Version: <= 20240216
CVSS: 7.2High
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2024-1983

View all Simple Ajax Chat – Add a Fast, Secure Chat Box vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-1983 is a high-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Simple Ajax Chat WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 20240216. It carries a CVSS score of 7.2 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 20240223; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2024, reported by Vincent Fourcade (vinceMatsui).

Vulnerability Overview

The Simple Ajax Chat – Add a Fast, Secure Chat Box plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the name field in all versions up to, and including, 20240216 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attacker 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 privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Reaching this weakness in Simple Ajax Chat <= 20240216 takes no account at all. 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 Simple Ajax Chat the fix is 20240223: builds <= 20240216 are affected, anything from 20240223 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 20240223, 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: Simple Ajax Chat 20240223 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-1983 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/f67b5cd8-bae8-48ca-87d5-7445724791f6 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-1983

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Simple Ajax Chat – Add a Fast, Secure Chat Box

CVSS Vector

7.2

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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