CVE-2023-23705

WordPress Books Gallery <= 4.4.8 - Cross-Site Request Forgery leading to Plugin Settings Changes

2023-02-20 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 4.4.9
Affected Plugin: Books Gallery – Book Showcase, Library & Affiliate Plugin
Affected Version: <= 4.4.8
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2023-23705

View all Books Gallery – Book Showcase, Library & Affiliate Plugin vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-23705 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Books Gallery WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.4.8. 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 4.4.9; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2023, reported by yuyudhn.

Vulnerability Overview

The WordPress Books Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 4.4.8. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the 'wbg-api-import.php' file and the functions 'wbg_gallery_settings', 'wbg_search_panel_settings', and 'wbg_details_settings'. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change plugin 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.

CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Books Gallery <= 4.4.8 carries this weakness at wbg_gallery_settings, and reaching it 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 Books Gallery the fix is 4.4.9: builds <= 4.4.8 are affected, anything from 4.4.9 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.4.9, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Books Gallery: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Books Gallery 4.4.9 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-23705 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d2e10791-7158-47ae-85c9-4a5a53b25d68 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-23705

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Books Gallery – Book Showcase, Library & Affiliate Plugin

CVSS Vector

4.3

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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