CVE-2023-28780

Yoast SEO: Local <= 14.8 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2023-05-09 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 14.9
Affected Plugin: Yoast SEO: Local
Affected Version: <= 14.8
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2023-28780

View all Yoast SEO: Local vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-28780 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 14.8. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 14.9; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2023, reported by Rafie Muhammad.

Vulnerability Overview

The Yoast SEO: Local plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in versions up to, and including, 14.8. This is due to missing nonce validation on an unknown function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to perform an unknown unauthorized action, via a 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.

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

Reaching this weakness in Yoast SEO <= 14.8 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 Yoast SEO the fix is 14.9: builds <= 14.8 are affected, anything from 14.9 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 14.9, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Yoast SEO: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Yoast SEO 14.9 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-28780 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/7d536acc-b297-4acd-97e2-87eae2e2b95a https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-28780

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Yoast SEO: Local

CVSS Vector

4.3

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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