Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.2.3
- Affected Plugin
- WP Downgrade | Specific Core Version
- Affected Version
< 1.2.3- CVSS
- 4.8Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
- CVE
CVE-2022-1001
At a glance
CVE-2022-1001 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the WP Downgrade WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.2.3. It carries a CVSS score of 4.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 1.2.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2022, reported by Taurus Omar.
Vulnerability Overview
The WP Downgrade WordPress plugin before 1.2.3 only perform client side validation of its "WordPress Target Version" settings, but does not sanitise and escape it server side, allowing high privilege users such as admin to perform Cross-Site attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed.
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
Reaching this weakness in WP Downgrade < 1.2.3 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. 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 Downgrade the fix is 1.2.3: builds < 1.2.3 are affected, anything from 1.2.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.2.3, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP Downgrade: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP Downgrade 1.2.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C