CVE-2023-3977

Inisev Plugins (Various Versions) - Cross-Site Request Forgery on handle_installation function

2023-07-27 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.3.8
Affected Plugin: Clone
Affected Version: <= 2.3.7
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2023-3977

At a glance

CVE-2023-3977 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Clone WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.3.7. 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 2.3.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2023, reported by Chloe Chamberland.

Vulnerability Overview

Several plugins for WordPress by Inisev are vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery to unauthorized installation of plugins due to a missing nonce check on the handle_installation function that is called via the inisev_installation AJAX aciton in various versions. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to install plugins from the limited list 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 Clone <= 2.3.7 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 Clone the fix is 2.3.8: builds <= 2.3.7 are affected, anything from 2.3.8 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.3.8, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Clone: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Clone 2.3.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-3977 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ab7c8926-c762-49b1-bc97-4b7a2f4f97fc https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-3977

Related records

Same weakness class

4.3Clone <= 2.3.7 Cross-Site Request Forgery

Other vulnerabilities in Clone

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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