Ultimate Member <= 2.4.0 - Subscriber+ Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2022-07-15 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.4.1
Affected Plugin: Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin
Affected Version: 2.4.0
CVSS: 5.4Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE pending

View all Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Ultimate Member WordPress plugin, affecting versions 2.4.0. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 2.4.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2022.

Vulnerability Overview

The Ultimate Member plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘website’ parameter in versions up to, and including, 2.4.0 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level permissions and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user clicks on the username of an affected user.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed.

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

Ultimate Member 2.4.0 carries this weakness at website, 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 Ultimate Member the fix is 2.4.1: builds 2.4.0 are affected, anything from 2.4.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.4.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Ultimate Member: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Ultimate Member 2.4.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/45f32160-36eb-4d66-a6a6-a3d6f2f7bf1a

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin

CVSS Vector

5.4

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredLow
User InteractionRequired
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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