CVE-2023-45003 in Arrow Plugins Social Feed Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 10/25/2023
Unauth. Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Arrow Plugins Social Feed | Custom Feed for Social Media Networks plugin <= 2.2.0 versions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/04/2023
The vulnerability CVE-2023-45003 represents an unauthorized reflected cross-site scripting flaw discovered in the Arrow Plugins Social Feed plugin for WordPress, specifically affecting versions up to and including 2.2.0. This security weakness resides within the plugin's handling of user input parameters that are reflected back to users without proper sanitization or encoding mechanisms. The issue arises from the plugin's failure to adequately validate and escape data received from external sources before rendering it within web pages, creating an avenue for malicious actors to inject client-side scripts into the application's response.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the plugin's insufficient input validation processes within its social media feed display functionality. When users interact with the plugin's interface or when the plugin processes data from social media networks, it fails to properly sanitize parameters that are subsequently reflected back to the browser. This reflected nature means that malicious payloads are executed in the context of the victim's browser session, allowing attackers to potentially steal session cookies, perform unauthorized actions on behalf of users, or redirect victims to malicious websites. The vulnerability is classified as CWE-79, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Scripting flaws in web applications, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for initial access through spearphishing attachments or links.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script execution, as it can enable attackers to compromise user sessions and potentially gain unauthorized access to WordPress administrative interfaces. An attacker could craft malicious URLs containing XSS payloads that, when clicked by authenticated users, would execute scripts in their browser context. This could lead to session hijacking, privilege escalation, or the ability to modify content within the WordPress installation. The reflected nature of the vulnerability means that the attack vector does not require persistent storage of malicious code, making it particularly dangerous as it can be delivered through email links, social media posts, or other web-based delivery mechanisms. The vulnerability affects the plugin's ability to properly validate and sanitize user-supplied parameters, potentially allowing attackers to exploit this weakness in any environment where the vulnerable plugin is installed.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including updating to the latest version of the Arrow Plugins Social Feed plugin where the XSS vulnerability has been patched. System administrators should also consider implementing additional protective measures such as Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to limit the execution of unauthorized scripts, input validation at the application level, and regular security scanning of WordPress installations. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper input sanitization and output encoding practices, which are fundamental requirements in secure web application development. Organizations should also conduct thorough security assessments of all installed WordPress plugins to identify similar vulnerabilities that may exist in other third-party components. Regular patch management procedures should be implemented to ensure timely updates of all software components, including plugins and themes, to prevent exploitation of known vulnerabilities. The incident underscores the critical need for maintaining up-to-date security practices and the importance of validating all user inputs within web applications to prevent various injection attacks including cross-site scripting.