CVE-2017-18532 in Realty Plugin
Summary
by MITRE
The realty plugin before 1.1.0 for WordPress has multiple XSS issues.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/27/2023
The CVE-2017-18532 vulnerability affects the realty plugin for WordPress versions prior to 1.1.0, presenting multiple cross-site scripting flaws that pose significant security risks to affected websites. This vulnerability falls under the category of insecure input handling and output encoding issues that can be exploited by malicious actors to inject malicious scripts into web applications. The realty plugin, designed to manage property listings and real estate data within WordPress environments, failed to properly sanitize user inputs, creating persistent XSS attack vectors that could be leveraged by attackers to compromise user sessions and execute unauthorized actions.
The technical flaw manifests in the plugin's insufficient validation and sanitization of data submitted through various user-facing interfaces including property listings, contact forms, and administrative input fields. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities by injecting malicious JavaScript code through parameters that are not properly escaped or filtered before being rendered on web pages. The vulnerability operates at the application layer, specifically targeting the plugin's handling of user-supplied data in contexts where HTML output occurs, making it particularly dangerous as it can affect both frontend and backend interfaces. According to CWE classification, this vulnerability maps to CWE-79 which represents Cross-Site Scripting flaws, specifically encompassing issues where untrusted data is directly output to web pages without proper sanitization.
The operational impact of CVE-2017-18532 extends beyond simple script injection, as it can enable attackers to hijack user sessions, steal sensitive information, manipulate data within the WordPress environment, and potentially gain elevated privileges. When users browse pages containing malicious scripts, their browsers execute the injected code, which can lead to cookie theft, session fixation, or redirection to malicious sites. The vulnerability's persistence across multiple XSS vectors means that attackers have numerous entry points to exploit the weakness, increasing the probability of successful compromise. Furthermore, this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566 which covers Phishing with Malicious Attachments or Links, as attackers can leverage the XSS to deliver malicious payloads through compromised website interfaces.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately update to realty plugin version 1.1.0 or later, which includes proper input validation and output sanitization measures. The recommended mitigations include implementing proper HTML escaping for all user-generated content, employing Content Security Policy headers to restrict script execution, and conducting regular security audits of third-party plugins. Additionally, administrators should consider implementing web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious input patterns, while also monitoring for unusual activity in plugin-related logs. The vulnerability underscores the critical importance of keeping WordPress plugins updated and following security best practices for input validation, as even seemingly minor plugins can provide attackers with significant attack surface opportunities.