CVE-2019-20141

Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme <= 2.0 - Cross-Site Scripting

2019-12-01 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Unpatched
Affected Theme: Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme
Affected Version: <= 2.0
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-79 · Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
CVE: CVE-2019-20141

View all Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2019-20141 is a medium-severity Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in the Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 2.0. 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 December 2019, reported by Khaled Nassar.

Vulnerability Overview

An XSS issue was discovered in the Laborator Neon theme 2.0 for WordPress via the data/autosuggest-remote.php q parameter.

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 Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme <= 2.0 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 Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme yet, so installs running <= 2.0 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 Neon - Bootstrap Admin Theme: 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

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-20141 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/b7b29589-804b-4d37-a3f4-919f0c1126c2 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-20141

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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