Two Factor Authentication <= 1.3.12 - Cross-Site Request Forgery
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.3.13
- Affected Plugin
- Two Factor Authentication
- Affected Version
< 1.3.13- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2018-20231
At a glance
CVE-2018-20231 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Two Factor Authentication WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.3.13. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.3.13; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2018, reported by Martijn Korse.
Vulnerability Overview
Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in the two-factor-authentication plugin before 1.3.13 for WordPress allows remote attackers to disable 2FA via the tfa_enable_tfa parameter due to missing nonce validation.
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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in Two Factor Authentication < 1.3.13 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 Two Factor Authentication the fix is 1.3.13: builds < 1.3.13 are affected, anything from 1.3.13 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.3.13, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Two Factor Authentication: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Two Factor Authentication 1.3.13 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Two Factor Authentication
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