Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.0.1
- Affected Plugin
- WordPress Sentinel
- Affected Version
<= 1.0.0- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2011-5226
At a glance
CVE-2011-5226 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the WordPress Sentinel WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0.0. 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 1.0.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2011, reported by Julio Potier.
Vulnerability Overview
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in wordpress_sentinel.php in the Sentinel plugin 1.0.0 for WordPress allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of an administrator for requests that trigger snapshots. The WordPress Sentinel plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 1.0.0. This is due to missing nonce validation on several functions. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to perform administrative actions like modifying 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. 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 WordPress Sentinel <= 1.0.0 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 WordPress Sentinel the fix is 1.0.1: builds <= 1.0.0 are affected, anything from 1.0.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.0.1, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WordPress Sentinel: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WordPress Sentinel 1.0.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in WordPress Sentinel
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