CVE-2021-24444

TaxoPress <= 3.0.7.1 - Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2021-06-30 00:00
Akash Rajendra Patil

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.0.7.2
Affected Plugin
Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager – Autotagger Automatically Add Terms
Affected Version
<= 3.0.7.1
CVSS
5.5Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2021-24444
View all Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager – Autotagger Automatically Add Terms vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24444 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.0.7.1. It carries a CVSS score of 5.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 3.0.7.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2021, reported by Akash Rajendra Patil.

Vulnerability Overview

The TaxoPress – Create and Manage Taxonomies, Tags, Categories WordPress plugin before 3.0.7.2 does not sanitise its Taxonomy description field, allowing high privilege users to set JavaScript payload in them even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed, leading to an authenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting 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, and no interaction from a victim user.

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

Reaching this weakness in Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager <= 3.0.7.1 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. For Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager the fix is 3.0.7.2: builds <= 3.0.7.1 are affected, anything from 3.0.7.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.0.7.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager 3.0.7.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24444https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/282fabde-c3a5-49d0-987a-39f106f766cfhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24444

Related records

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