Vulnerabilities > CVE-2014-9033 - Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Wordpress

047910
CVSS 6.8 - MEDIUM
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
MEDIUM
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
PARTIAL
Integrity impact
PARTIAL
Availability impact
PARTIAL
network
wordpress
CWE-352
nessus

Summary

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in wp-login.php in WordPress 3.7.4, 3.8.4, 3.9.2, and 4.0 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for requests that reset passwords.

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • JSON Hijacking (aka JavaScript Hijacking)
    An attacker targets a system that uses JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) as a transport mechanism between the client and the server (common in Web 2.0 systems using AJAX) to steal possibly confidential information transmitted from the server back to the client inside the JSON object by taking advantage of the loophole in the browser's Same Origin Policy that does not prohibit JavaScript from one website to be included and executed in the context of another website. An attacker gets the victim to visit his or her malicious page that contains a script tag whose source points to the vulnerable system with a URL that requests a response from the server containing a JSON object with possibly confidential information. The malicious page also contains malicious code to capture the JSON object returned by the server before any other processing on it can take place, typically by overriding the JavaScript function used to create new objects. This hook allows the malicious code to get access to the creation of each object and transmit the possibly sensitive contents of the captured JSON object to the attackers' server. There is nothing in the browser's security model to prevent the attackers' malicious JavaScript code (originating from attacker's domain) to set up an environment (as described above) to intercept a JSON object response (coming from the vulnerable target system's domain), read its contents and transmit to the attackers' controlled site. The same origin policy protects the domain object model (DOM), but not the JSON.
  • Cross-Domain Search Timing
    An attacker initiates cross domain HTTP / GET requests and times the server responses. The timing of these responses may leak important information on what is happening on the server. Browser's same origin policy prevents the attacker from directly reading the server responses (in the absence of any other weaknesses), but does not prevent the attacker from timing the responses to requests that the attacker issued cross domain. For GET requests an attacker could for instance leverage the "img" tag in conjunction with "onload() / onerror()" javascript events. For the POST requests, an attacker could leverage the "iframe" element and leverage the "onload()" event. There is nothing in the current browser security model that prevents an attacker to use these methods to time responses to the attackers' cross domain requests. The timing for these responses leaks information. For instance, if a victim has an active session with their online e-mail account, an attacker could issue search requests in the victim's mailbox. While the attacker is not able to view the responses, based on the timings of the responses, the attacker could ask yes / no questions as to the content of victim's e-mails, who the victim e-mailed, when, etc. This is but one example; There are other scenarios where an attacker could infer potentially sensitive information from cross domain requests by timing the responses while asking the right questions that leak information.
  • Cross Site Identification
    An attacker harvests identifying information about a victim via an active session that the victim's browser has with a social networking site. A victim may have the social networking site open in one tab or perhaps is simply using the "remember me" feature to keep his or her session with the social networking site active. An attacker induces a payload to execute in the victim's browser that transparently to the victim initiates a request to the social networking site (e.g., via available social network site APIs) to retrieve identifying information about a victim. While some of this information may be public, the attacker is able to harvest this information in context and may use it for further attacks on the user (e.g., spear phishing). In one example of an attack, an attacker may post a malicious posting that contains an image with an embedded link. The link actually requests identifying information from the social networking site. A victim who views the malicious posting in his or her browser will have sent identifying information to the attacker, as long as the victim had an active session with the social networking site. There are many other ways in which the attacker may get the payload to execute in the victim's browser mainly by finding a way to hide it in some reputable site that the victim visits. The attacker could also send the link to the victim in an e-mail and trick the victim into clicking on the link. This attack is basically a cross site request forgery attack with two main differences. First, there is no action that is performed on behalf of the user aside from harvesting information. So standard CSRF protection may not work in this situation. Second, what is important in this attack pattern is the nature of the data being harvested, which is identifying information that can be obtained and used in context. This real time harvesting of identifying information can be used as a prelude for launching real time targeted social engineering attacks on the victim.
  • Cross Site Request Forgery (aka Session Riding)
    An attacker crafts malicious web links and distributes them (via web pages, email, etc.), typically in a targeted manner, hoping to induce users to click on the link and execute the malicious action against some third-party application. If successful, the action embedded in the malicious link will be processed and accepted by the targeted application with the users' privilege level. This type of attack leverages the persistence and implicit trust placed in user session cookies by many web applications today. In such an architecture, once the user authenticates to an application and a session cookie is created on the user's system, all following transactions for that session are authenticated using that cookie including potential actions initiated by an attacker and simply "riding" the existing session cookie.

Nessus

  • NASL familyDebian Local Security Checks
    NASL idDEBIAN_DLA-236.NASL
    descriptionIn the Debian squeeze-lts version of Wordpress, multiple security issues have been fixed : Remote attackers could... - ... upload files with invalid or unsafe names - ... mount social engineering attacks - ... compromise a site via cross-site scripting - ... inject SQL commands - ... cause denial of service or information disclosure CVE-2014-9031 Jouko Pynnonen discovered an unauthenticated cross site scripting vulnerability (XSS) in wptexturize(), exploitable via comments or posts. CVE-2014-9033 Cross site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the password changing process, which could be used by an attacker to trick an user into changing her password. CVE-2014-9034 Javier Nieto Arevalo and Andres Rojas Guerrero reported a potential denial of service in the way the phpass library is used to handle passwords, since no maximum password length was set. CVE-2014-9035 John Blackbourn reported an XSS in the
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2015-06-02
    plugin id83918
    published2015-06-02
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2015-2020 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/83918
    titleDebian DLA-236-1 : wordpress security update
    code
    #%NASL_MIN_LEVEL 80502
    #
    # (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    #
    # The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were
    # extracted from Debian Security Advisory DLA-236-1. The text
    # itself is copyright (C) Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
    #
    
    include("compat.inc");
    
    if (description)
    {
      script_id(83918);
      script_version("2.6");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_modification_date", value:"2020/03/12");
    
      script_cve_id("CVE-2014-9031", "CVE-2014-9033", "CVE-2014-9034", "CVE-2014-9035", "CVE-2014-9036", "CVE-2014-9037", "CVE-2014-9038", "CVE-2014-9039", "CVE-2015-3438", "CVE-2015-3439", "CVE-2015-3440");
      script_bugtraq_id(71231, 71232, 71233, 71234, 71236, 71237, 71238, 74269, 74334);
    
      script_name(english:"Debian DLA-236-1 : wordpress security update");
      script_summary(english:"Checks dpkg output for the updated packages.");
    
      script_set_attribute(
        attribute:"synopsis", 
        value:"The remote Debian host is missing a security update."
      );
      script_set_attribute(
        attribute:"description", 
        value:
    "In the Debian squeeze-lts version of Wordpress, multiple security
    issues have been fixed :
    
    Remote attackers could...
    
      - ... upload files with invalid or unsafe names
    
      - ... mount social engineering attacks
    
      - ... compromise a site via cross-site scripting
    
      - ... inject SQL commands
    
      - ... cause denial of service or information disclosure
    
    CVE-2014-9031
    
    Jouko Pynnonen discovered an unauthenticated cross site scripting
    vulnerability (XSS) in wptexturize(), exploitable via comments or
    posts.
    
    CVE-2014-9033
    
    Cross site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the password
    changing process, which could be used by an attacker to trick an user
    into changing her password.
    
    CVE-2014-9034
    
    Javier Nieto Arevalo and Andres Rojas Guerrero reported a potential
    denial of service in the way the phpass library is used to handle
    passwords, since no maximum password length was set.
    
    CVE-2014-9035
    
    John Blackbourn reported an XSS in the 'Press This' function (used for
    quick publishing using a browser 'bookmarklet').
    
    CVE-2014-9036
    
    Robert Chapin reported an XSS in the HTML filtering of CSS in posts.
    
    CVE-2014-9037
    
    David Anderson reported a hash comparison vulnerability for passwords
    stored using the old-style MD5 scheme. While unlikely, this could be
    exploited to compromise an account, if the user had not logged in
    after a Wordpress 2.5 update (uploaded to Debian on 2 Apr, 2008) and
    the password MD5 hash could be collided with due to PHP dynamic
    comparison.
    
    CVE-2014-9038
    
    Ben Bidner reported a server side request forgery (SSRF) in the core
    HTTP layer which unsufficiently blocked the loopback IP address space.
    
    CVE-2014-9039
    
    Momen Bassel, Tanoy Bose, and Bojan Slavkovic reported a vulnerability
    in the password reset process: an email address change would not
    invalidate a previous password reset email.
    
    CVE-2015-3438
    
    Cedric Van Bockhaven reported and Gary Pendergast, Mike Adams, and
    Andrew Nacin of the WordPress security team fixed a
    cross-site-scripting vulnerabilitity, which could enable anonymous
    users to compromise a site. 
    
    CVE-2015-3439
    
    Jakub Zoczek discovered a very limited cross-site scripting
    vulnerability, that could be used as part of a social engineering
    attack.
    
    CVE-2015-3440
    
    Jouko Pynnönen discovered a cross-site scripting vulnerability,
    which could enable commenters to compromise a site.
    
    NOTE: Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description
    block directly from the DLA security advisory. Tenable has attempted
    to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without
    introducing additional issues."
      );
      script_set_attribute(
        attribute:"see_also",
        value:"https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2015/06/msg00000.html"
      );
      script_set_attribute(
        attribute:"see_also",
        value:"https://packages.debian.org/source/squeeze-lts/wordpress"
      );
      script_set_attribute(
        attribute:"solution", 
        value:"Upgrade the affected wordpress, and wordpress-l10n packages."
      );
      script_set_cvss_base_vector("CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P");
      script_set_cvss_temporal_vector("CVSS2#E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"exploitability_ease", value:"Exploits are available");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"exploit_available", value:"true");
    
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_type", value:"local");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:wordpress");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:wordpress-l10n");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:6.0");
    
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"patch_publication_date", value:"2015/06/01");
      script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_publication_date", value:"2015/06/02");
      script_end_attributes();
    
      script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO);
      script_copyright(english:"This script is Copyright (C) 2015-2020 Tenable Network Security, Inc.");
      script_family(english:"Debian Local Security Checks");
    
      script_dependencies("ssh_get_info.nasl");
      script_require_keys("Host/local_checks_enabled", "Host/Debian/release", "Host/Debian/dpkg-l");
    
      exit(0);
    }
    
    
    include("audit.inc");
    include("debian_package.inc");
    
    
    if (!get_kb_item("Host/local_checks_enabled")) audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_ENABLED);
    if (!get_kb_item("Host/Debian/release")) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Debian");
    if (!get_kb_item("Host/Debian/dpkg-l")) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_LIST_MISSING);
    
    
    flag = 0;
    if (deb_check(release:"6.0", prefix:"wordpress", reference:"3.6.1+dfsg-1~deb6u6")) flag++;
    if (deb_check(release:"6.0", prefix:"wordpress-l10n", reference:"3.6.1+dfsg-1~deb6u6")) flag++;
    
    if (flag)
    {
      if (report_verbosity > 0) security_warning(port:0, extra:deb_report_get());
      else security_warning(0);
      exit(0);
    }
    else audit(AUDIT_HOST_NOT, "affected");
    
  • NASL familyDebian Local Security Checks
    NASL idDEBIAN_DSA-3085.NASL
    descriptionMultiple security issues have been discovered in Wordpress, a web blogging tool, resulting in denial of service or information disclosure. More information can be found in the upstream advisory at - CVE-2014-9031 Jouko Pynnonen discovered an unauthenticated cross site scripting vulnerability (XSS) in wptexturize(), exploitable via comments or posts. - CVE-2014-9033 Cross site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the password changing process, which could be used by an attacker to trick an user into changing her password. - CVE-2014-9034 Javier Nieto Arevalo and Andres Rojas Guerrero reported a potential denial of service in the way the phpass library is used to handle passwords, since no maximum password length was set. - CVE-2014-9035 John Blackbourn reported an XSS in the
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2014-12-04
    plugin id79696
    published2014-12-04
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2014-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/79696
    titleDebian DSA-3085-1 : wordpress - security update
  • NASL familyFreeBSD Local Security Checks
    NASL idFREEBSD_PKG_5E1351788AEB11E4801F0022156E8794.NASL
    descriptionMITRE reports : wp-login.php in WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 might allow remote attackers to reset passwords by leveraging access to an e-mail account that received a password-reset message. wp-includes/http.php in WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 allows remote attackers to conduct server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks by referring to a 127.0.0.0/8 resource. WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 might allow remote attackers to obtain access to an account idle since 2008 by leveraging an improper PHP dynamic type comparison for an MD5 hash. Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via a crafted Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) token sequence in a post. Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Press This in WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via unspecified vectors wp-includes/class-phpass.php in WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a long password that is improperly handled during hashing, a similar issue to CVE-2014-9016. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in wp-login.php in WordPress 3.7.4, 3.8.4, 3.9.2, and 4.0 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for requests that reset passwords.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id80350
    published2015-01-05
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2015-2018 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/80350
    titleFreeBSD : wordpress -- multiple vulnerabilities (5e135178-8aeb-11e4-801f-0022156e8794)
  • NASL familyMandriva Local Security Checks
    NASL idMANDRIVA_MDVSA-2014-233.NASL
    descriptionUpdated wordpress package fixes security vulnerabilities : XSS in wptexturize() via comments or posts, exploitable for unauthenticated users (CVE-2014-9031). XSS in media playlists (CVE-2014-9032). CSRF in the password reset process (CVE-2014-9033). Denial of service for giant passwords. The phpass library by Solar Designer was used in both projects without setting a maximum password length, which can lead to CPU exhaustion upon hashing (CVE-2014-9034). XSS in Press This (CVE-2014-9035). XSS in HTML filtering of CSS in posts (CVE-2014-9036). Hash comparison vulnerability in old-style MD5-stored passwords (CVE-2014-9037). SSRF: Safe HTTP requests did not sufficiently block the loopback IP address space (CVE-2014-9038). Previously an email address change would not invalidate a previous password reset email (CVE-2014-9039).
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id79613
    published2014-11-28
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2014-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/79613
    titleMandriva Linux Security Advisory : wordpress (MDVSA-2014:233)
  • NASL familyCGI abuses
    NASL idWORDPRESS_4_0_1.NASL
    descriptionAccording to its version number, the WordPress application installed on the remote web server is affected by multiple vulnerabilities : - Multiple unspecified errors exist that could allow cross-site scripting attacks. - An unspecified error exists that could allow cross-site request forgery attacks. - An error exists related to password handling that could allow denial of service attacks. - An unspecified error exists that could allow server-side request forgery attacks. - A hash collision error exists that could allow a user account to be compromised. - An error exists related to password reset processing that could allow a user account to be compromised. - An error exists related to the post or page comment field that could allow persistent cross-site scripting attacks. Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id79437
    published2014-11-25
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2014-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/79437
    titleWordPress < 3.7.5 / 3.8.5 / 3.9.3 / 4.0.1 Multiple Vulnerabilities
  • NASL familyFedora Local Security Checks
    NASL idFEDORA_2014-15560.NASL
    descriptionWordPress 4.0.1 Security Release See: https://wordpress.org/news/2014/11/wordpress-4-0-1/ Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2014-12-07
    plugin id79774
    published2014-12-07
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2014-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/79774
    titleFedora 21 : wordpress-4.0.1-1.fc21 (2014-15560)
  • NASL familyFedora Local Security Checks
    NASL idFEDORA_2014-15526.NASL
    descriptionWordPress 4.0.1 Security Release See: https://wordpress.org/news/2014/11/wordpress-4-0-1/ Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2014-12-03
    plugin id79678
    published2014-12-03
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2014-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/79678
    titleFedora 19 : wordpress-4.0.1-1.fc19 (2014-15526)
  • NASL familyFedora Local Security Checks
    NASL idFEDORA_2014-15507.NASL
    descriptionWordPress 4.0.1 Security Release See: https://wordpress.org/news/2014/11/wordpress-4-0-1/ Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2014-12-03
    plugin id79674
    published2014-12-03
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2014-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/79674
    titleFedora 20 : wordpress-4.0.1-1.fc20 (2014-15507)