CVE-2023-41235

Everest News Pro <= 1.1.7 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting

2023-08-29 00:00
László Radnai

Strategic Overview

Status
Unpatched
Affected Theme
Everest News Pro
Affected Version
<= 1.1.7
CVSS
6.1Medium
Weakness type
CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE
CVE-2023-41235
View all Everest News Pro vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-41235 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Everest News Pro WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 1.1.7. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed August 2023, reported by László Radnai.

Vulnerability Overview

The Everest News Pro theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via an unknown parameter in versions up to, and including, 1.1.7 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 Everest News Pro <= 1.1.7 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. No fixed build of this theme is recorded for Everest News Pro yet, so installs running <= 1.1.7 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.

Remediation

No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Everest News Pro: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

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