CVE-2023-30873

WP Docs <= 1.9.8 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to folder management

2023-04-18 00:00
István Márton

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 1.9.9
Affected Plugin
WP Docs
Affected Version
<= 1.9.8
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2023-30873
View all WP Docs vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-30873 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the WP Docs WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.9.8. 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 1.9.9; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2023, reported by István Márton.

Vulnerability Overview

The WP Docs plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 1.9.8. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the functions wpdocs_create_folder, wpdocs_update_folder, and wpdocs_delete_folder. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to create, rename and delete folders maintained by the plugin 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 Docs <= 1.9.8 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 Docs the fix is 1.9.9: builds <= 1.9.8 are affected, anything from 1.9.9 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.9.9, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP Docs: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP Docs 1.9.9 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-30873https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/6003b1bf-b176-4ca9-9de2-58133259e0f6https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-30873

Related records

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