CVE-2022-45065

SEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO <= 12.1.20 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via 'page' and 'tab'

2023-03-17 00:00
Rafie Muhammad

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 12.1.21
Affected Plugin
GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO
Affected Version
<= 12.1.20
CVSS
6.1Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2022-45065
View all GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2022-45065 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 12.1.20. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 12.1.21; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2023, reported by Rafie Muhammad.

Vulnerability Overview

The SEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the 'page' and 'tab' parameters in versions up to, and including, 12.1.20 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user 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-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO <= 12.1.20 carries this weakness at page, and reaching it 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 GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO the fix is 12.1.21: builds <= 12.1.20 are affected, anything from 12.1.21 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 12.1.21, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO 12.1.21 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-45065https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/3edce64d-13c2-454a-b5da-0454453f69cbhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-45065

Related records

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