CVE-2022-40632

wpForo Forum <= 2.0.5 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2022-09-08 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.0.6
Affected Plugin: wpForo Forum
Affected Version: <= 2.0.5
CVSS: 8.8High
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2022-40632

At a glance

CVE-2022-40632 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the wpForo Forum WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.0.5. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.0.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2022, reported by Brandon James Roldan (tomorrowisnew).

Vulnerability Overview

The wpForo Forum plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 2.0.5. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on various AJAX actions. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to invoke the associated functions (leading to post deletion for example), via 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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Reaching this weakness in wpForo Forum <= 2.0.5 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 wpForo Forum the fix is 2.0.6: builds <= 2.0.5 are affected, anything from 2.0.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.0.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to wpForo Forum: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: wpForo Forum 2.0.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-40632 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a313f4d0-fd9e-47f1-99eb-351a2aff9bea https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-40632

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in wpForo Forum

CVSS Vector

8.8

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh

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