CVE-2023-6520

WP 2FA – Two-factor authentication for WordPress <= 2.5.0 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2024-01-02 00:00
Ulyses Saicha

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.6.0
Affected Plugin
WP 2FA – Two-factor authentication for WordPress
Affected Version
<= 2.5.0
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-6520
View all WP 2FA – Two-factor authentication for WordPress vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-6520 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the WP 2FA WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.5.0. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.6.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2024, reported by Ulyses Saicha.

Vulnerability Overview

The WP 2FA – Two-factor authentication for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 2.5.0. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the send_backup_codes_email function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to send emails with arbitrary content to registered users via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator or other registered user into performing an action such as clicking on a link. While a nonce check is present, it is only executed if a nonce is set. By omitting a nonce from the request, the check can be bypassed.

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 WP 2FA <= 2.5.0 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 WP 2FA the fix is 2.6.0: builds <= 2.5.0 are affected, anything from 2.6.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.6.0, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP 2FA: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP 2FA 2.6.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-6520https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/0af451be-2477-453c-a230-7f3fb804398bhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-6520

Related records

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