CVE-2023-47554 in Actueel Financieel Nieuws Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 11/14/2023
Auth. (admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in DenK BV Actueel Financieel Nieuws – Denk Internet Solutions plugin <= 5.1.0 versions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/09/2023
This vulnerability exists within the DenK BV Actueel Financieel Nieuws plugin for WordPress, specifically affecting versions up to and including 5.1.0. The issue represents a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability that requires administrative privileges or higher access level to exploit, making it particularly concerning for WordPress environments where administrative accounts are frequently targeted by attackers. The vulnerability allows authenticated users with administrator-level permissions or higher to inject malicious scripts that persist in the application's database and execute whenever other users view affected content.
The technical flaw stems from insufficient input validation and output escaping mechanisms within the plugin's handling of user-supplied data. When administrators or privileged users create or modify content through the plugin's interface, the application fails to properly sanitize or encode potentially dangerous characters and script tags before storing them in the database. This stored data is then served to other users without adequate sanitization, creating a persistent XSS vector. The vulnerability is classified as stored XSS because the malicious payload is saved in the server's database rather than being reflected in a single request, allowing the attack to persist and affect multiple users over time.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on the affected WordPress plugin. An attacker with administrative access could inject malicious scripts that could steal session cookies, perform unauthorized actions on behalf of users, redirect victims to malicious sites, or even escalate privileges within the WordPress environment. The stored nature of the vulnerability means that the malicious code executes automatically whenever affected pages are loaded, potentially compromising all users who access those pages. This type of vulnerability can lead to complete compromise of the WordPress installation, especially if the administrator account is not properly secured with multi-factor authentication or if the administrator has elevated privileges across multiple sites.
Mitigation strategies should focus on immediate plugin updates to versions that address the vulnerability, as well as implementing comprehensive input validation and output encoding practices. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious script injections, conducting regular security audits of installed plugins, and ensuring that administrative accounts are protected with strong authentication mechanisms including multi-factor authentication. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which specifically addresses cross-site scripting flaws, and may map to ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for initial access through malicious web content, or T1071.001 for application layer protocol usage. Regular monitoring of plugin repositories and security advisories is essential for maintaining WordPress security posture, as this vulnerability demonstrates the importance of keeping third-party components updated to prevent exploitation of known security flaws.