CVE-2021-24664

School Management System – WPSchoolPress <= 2.1.16 - Stored Cross-Site Scripting

2021-10-11 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.1.17
Affected Plugin: School Management System – WPSchoolPress
Affected Version: < 2.1.17
CVSS: 4.8Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2021-24664

View all School Management System – WPSchoolPress vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24664 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the School Management System WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.1.17. It carries a CVSS score of 4.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 2.1.17; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2021, reported by Davide Taraschi.

Vulnerability Overview

The School Management System – WPSchoolPress WordPress plugin before 2.1.17 sanitise some fields using sanitize_text_field() but does not escape them before outputting in attributes, resulting in Stored Cross-Site Scripting issues.

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')

School Management System < 2.1.17 carries this weakness at sanitize_text_field(), 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 School Management System the fix is 2.1.17: builds < 2.1.17 are affected, anything from 2.1.17 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.1.17, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to School Management System: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: School Management System 2.1.17 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24664 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/850f554f-abb5-4b9f-9b7b-67439abb1a31 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24664

Related records

Same weakness class

7.1School Management System – WPSchoolPress < 2.1.10 Reflected XSS

Other vulnerabilities in School Management System – WPSchoolPress

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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