CVE-2017-18513 in responsive-menu Plugin
Summary
by MITRE
The responsive-menu plugin before 3.1.4 for WordPress has no CSRF protection mechanism for the admin interface.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/25/2023
The responsive-menu plugin for WordPress versions prior to 3.1.4 contains a critical security flaw that compromises the integrity of the administrative interface through the absence of Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection mechanisms. This vulnerability exposes WordPress sites to potential unauthorized administrative actions that could be executed by malicious actors who successfully trick users into visiting compromised web pages. The lack of CSRF protection means that any authenticated administrator session can be exploited to perform administrative tasks without proper authorization, creating a significant attack surface for threat actors seeking to compromise WordPress installations.
The technical flaw resides in the plugin's failure to implement proper CSRF token validation within its administrative endpoints. When administrators interact with the plugin's settings or configuration pages, the system does not verify that requests originate from legitimate administrative sessions. This absence of validation allows attackers to craft malicious requests that can be executed in the context of an authenticated administrator's browser session. The vulnerability specifically affects the plugin's admin interface where configuration changes, menu modifications, and other administrative functions are processed. According to CWE-352, this represents a classic Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerability where the application fails to validate the source of requests, making it susceptible to exploitation through various attack vectors including social engineering and phishing campaigns.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is substantial as it allows attackers to perform arbitrary administrative actions on compromised WordPress sites. An attacker could potentially modify menu structures, alter plugin configurations, inject malicious code, or even gain full administrative control of the site if combined with other vulnerabilities. The attack surface extends beyond simple configuration changes since the compromised administrative session could be leveraged to execute more sophisticated attacks such as privilege escalation, data exfiltration, or the installation of backdoors. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078 which covers legitimate credentials and T1548 which covers abuse of cloud services, as attackers could exploit this to establish persistent access to WordPress installations.
Organizations using affected versions of the responsive-menu plugin should immediately upgrade to version 3.1.4 or later to remediate this vulnerability. Administrators should also implement additional security measures such as regular security audits, monitoring for unauthorized administrative changes, and ensuring that all WordPress plugins are kept up to date with the latest security patches. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of implementing proper CSRF protection mechanisms in web applications, particularly those with administrative interfaces. Organizations should consider deploying web application firewalls and implementing security headers to add additional layers of protection against such attacks. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should include checks for CSRF vulnerabilities in all administrative interfaces to prevent similar issues from occurring in other components of the web application stack.