CVE-2021-24715

WP Sitemap Page <= 1.6.6 - Admin+ Stored Cross Site Scripting

2021-09-07 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 1.7.0
Affected Plugin: WP Sitemap Page
Affected Version: < 1.7.0
CVSS: 4.8Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2021-24715

View all WP Sitemap Page vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24715 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the WP Sitemap Page WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.7.0. It carries a CVSS score of 4.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 1.7.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2021, reported by Nikhil Kapoor.

Vulnerability Overview

The WP Sitemap Page WordPress plugin before 1.7.0 does not properly sanitise and escape some of its settings, which could allow high privilege users to perform Cross-Site Scripting 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 Sitemap Page < 1.7.0 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 Sitemap Page the fix is 1.7.0: builds < 1.7.0 are affected, anything from 1.7.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.7.0, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP Sitemap Page: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP Sitemap Page 1.7.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24715 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/b6616c4b-6021-42c8-afe1-bfd789b895ca https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24715

CVSS Vector

4.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredHigh
User InteractionRequired
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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