Newspaper <= 10.3.3 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting

2020-06-03 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 10.3.4
Affected Theme: Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme
Affected Version: <= 10.3.3
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE pending

View all Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 10.3.3. 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 10.3.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2020, reported by Julio Potier.

Vulnerability Overview

The Newspaper plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 10.3.3 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user 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-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')

Reaching this weakness in Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme <= 10.3.3 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 Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme the fix is 10.3.4: builds <= 10.3.3 are affected, anything from 10.3.4 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 10.3.4, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme 10.3.4 closes this, and updating the theme is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/441f5764-eab6-40fe-80cd-65da327b39b2

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

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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