CVE-2023-23834

Spectra – WordPress Gutenberg Blocks <= 2.3.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Plugin Activation

2023-01-25 00:00
István Márton

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.3.2
Affected Plugin
Spectra Legacy – Gutenberg Blocks
Affected Version
<= 2.3.1
CVSS
6.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-23834
View all Spectra Legacy – Gutenberg Blocks vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-23834 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Spectra Legacy WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.3.1. It carries a CVSS score of 6.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.3.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2023, reported by István Márton.

Vulnerability Overview

The Spectra – WordPress Gutenberg Blocks plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.3.1 This is due to missing nonce validation on the activate_plugin function called via an AJAX action. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to activate arbitrary plugins, 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)

Reaching this weakness in Spectra Legacy <= 2.3.1 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 Spectra Legacy the fix is 2.3.2: builds <= 2.3.1 are affected, anything from 2.3.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.3.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Spectra Legacy: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Spectra Legacy 2.3.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-23834https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/0e828fbc-d465-4d69-b7d6-42e2ad87f73dhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-23834

Related records

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