WP BrowserUpdate <= 4.4.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery via wpbu_administration
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 4.5
- Affected Plugin
- WP BrowserUpdate
- Affected Version
<= 4.4.1- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2023-31078
At a glance
CVE-2023-31078 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the WP BrowserUpdate WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.4.1. 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 4.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2023, reported by qilin_99.
Vulnerability Overview
The WP BrowserUpdate plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 4.4.1. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the wpbu_administration function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to modify the 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)
Reaching this weakness in WP BrowserUpdate <= 4.4.1 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 BrowserUpdate the fix is 4.5: builds <= 4.4.1 are affected, anything from 4.5 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 4.5, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP BrowserUpdate: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP BrowserUpdate 4.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in WP BrowserUpdate
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