CVE-2023-44473

Table of Contents Plus <= 2302 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2023-09-29 00:00
Muhammad Daffa

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2309
Affected Version
<= 2302
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-44473
View all Table of Contents Plus – Automatic Table of Contents for Posts & Pages vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-44473 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Table of Contents Plus WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2302. 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 2309; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2023, reported by Muhammad Daffa.

Vulnerability Overview

The Table of Contents Plus plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2302. This is due to incorrect nonce validation on the save_admin_options() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to modify 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)

Table of Contents Plus <= 2302 carries this weakness at save_admin_options(), 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 Table of Contents Plus the fix is 2309: builds <= 2302 are affected, anything from 2309 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2309, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Table of Contents Plus: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Table of Contents Plus 2309 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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