WP Symposium Pro < 16.01 - Cross-Site Scripting

2016-01-08 00:00
Rahul Pratap Singh

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 16.01
Affected Plugin
WP Symposium Pro
Affected Version
< 16.01
CVSS
7.1High
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE pending
View all WP Symposium Pro vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a high-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the WP Symposium Pro WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 16.01. It carries a CVSS score of 7.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 16.01; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2016, reported by Rahul Pratap Singh.

Vulnerability Overview

The WP Symposium Pro plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting via the 'wpspro_country' parameter in versions before 16.01 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts that execute in a victim's browser.

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-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

WP Symposium Pro < 16.01 carries this weakness at wpspro_country, and reaching it 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 Symposium Pro the fix is 16.01: builds < 16.01 are affected, anything from 16.01 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 16.01, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP Symposium Pro: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP Symposium Pro 16.01 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in WP Symposium Pro

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