CVE-2014-8809

WP Symposium <= 14.10 - Cross-Site Scripting

2014-11-26 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 14.11
Affected Plugin: WP Symposium
Affected Version: <= 14.10
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2014-8809

At a glance

CVE-2014-8809 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the WP Symposium WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 14.10. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 14.11; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2014, reported by Kacper Szurek.

Vulnerability Overview

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the WP Symposium plugin before 14.11 for WordPress allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the (1) text parameter in an addComment action to ajax/profile_functions.php, (2) compose_text parameter in a sendMail action to ajax/mail_functions.php, (3) comment parameter in an add_comment action to ajax/lounge_functions.php, or (4) name parameter in a create_album action to ajax/gallery_functions.php.

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')

Reaching this weakness in WP Symposium <= 14.10 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 the fix is 14.11: builds <= 14.10 are affected, anything from 14.11 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 14.11, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP Symposium: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: WP Symposium 14.11 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2014-8809 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ccc7fd8b-ac7d-4b40-816a-a5a1565c422a https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-8809

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WP Symposium

CVSS Vector

6.1

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

Base

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

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