CVE-2022-41996

Avada <= 7.8.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

2022-09-21 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 7.8.2
Affected Theme: Avada | Website Builder For WordPress & WooCommerce
Affected Version: <= 7.8.1
CVSS: 8.8High
Weakness type: CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE: CVE-2022-41996

View all Avada | Website Builder For WordPress & WooCommerce vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2022-41996 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Avada WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 7.8.1. 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 7.8.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2022, reported by Dave Jong.

Vulnerability Overview

The Avada theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request forgery in versions up to, and including, 7.8.1 in class-avada-admin.php. This allows unauthenticated attackers to perform actions on behalf of an administrator if they can trick that administrator into performing an action, such as clicking 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 Avada <= 7.8.1 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 Avada the fix is 7.8.2: builds <= 7.8.1 are affected, anything from 7.8.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 7.8.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Avada: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Avada 7.8.2 closes this, and updating the theme is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-41996 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ef45fa78-7005-483e-a708-5aab0f7ba07b https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-41996

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Avada | Website Builder For WordPress & WooCommerce

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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