WP Cerber Security <= 9.0 - Authenticated (Admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 9.1
- Affected Plugin
- WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan
- Affected Version
<= 9.0- CVSS
- 5.5Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE pending
At a glance
This record tracks a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 9.0. It carries a CVSS score of 5.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Admin level or above. The issue is fixed in version 9.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2022.
Vulnerability Overview
The WP Cerber Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to stored cross-site scripting via the 'add_acl_comment' parameter. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with administrator-level permissions to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
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 interaction from a victim user.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan <= 9.0 carries this weakness at add_acl_comment, and reaching it 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 WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan the fix is 9.1: builds <= 9.0 are affected, anything from 9.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 9.1, 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: WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan 9.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan
- 9.8CVE-2021-37597: WP Cerber Security < 8.9.3 Multifactor Bypass
CVE-2021-37597 - 5.3CVE-2022-4100: WP Cerber Security <= 9.4 IP Protection Bypass
CVE-2022-4100 - 5.3CVE-2022-4417: WP Cerber Security <= 9.3.2 User Enumeration Bypass
CVE-2022-4417 - 5.3CVE-2022-2939: WP Cerber Security <= 9.0 User Enumeration Bypass
CVE-2022-2939 - 5.3CVE-2021-37598: WP Cerber < 8.9.3 Access Bypass Control
CVE-2021-37598
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C