Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan <= 7.6.0 - Authenticated (Admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 7.6.1
- Affected Version
<= 7.6.0- CVSS
- 4.4Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2022-3144
At a glance
CVE-2022-3144 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Wordfence Security WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 7.6.0. It carries a CVSS score of 4.4 (reachable over the network). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Admin level or above. The issue is fixed in version 7.6.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2022, reported by Ori Gabriel.
Vulnerability Overview
The Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to and including 7.6.0 via a setting on the options page due to insufficient escaping on the stored value. This makes it possible for authenticated users, with administrative privileges, to inject malicious web scripts into the setting that executes whenever a user accesses a page displaying the affected setting on sites running a vulnerable version.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, and no interaction from a victim user.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Reaching this weakness in Wordfence Security <= 7.6.0 takes an account at Admin level or above. 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 Wordfence Security the fix is 7.6.1: builds <= 7.6.0 are affected, anything from 7.6.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 7.6.1, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Admin access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Wordfence Security 7.6.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in Wordfence Security – Firewall, Malware Scan, and Login Security
- 7.2CVE-2014-4664: Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan XSS
CVE-2014-4664 - 6.5Wordfence <= 5.2.3 Multiple Protection Mechanism Bypasses
- 6.5Wordfence Security - Firewall & Malware Scan <= 3.3.6 Stored XSS
- 6.1Wordfence Security Reflected XSS
- 6.1CVE-2014-4932: Wordfence <= 5.1.4 Reflected Cross-Site Scripting
CVE-2014-4932 - 6.1Wordfence < 3.3.7 Reflected Cross-Site Scripting
- 4.7Wordfence Security Reflected XSS and Information Disclosure
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C