CVE-2024-11871 in Social Media Shortcodes Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 12/12/2024
The Social Media Shortcodes plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the plugin's 'patreon' shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 1.3.0 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on user supplied attributes. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/18/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-11871 affects the Social Media Shortcodes plugin for WordPress, specifically targeting the 'patreon' shortcode functionality within versions up to and including 1.3.0. This represents a critical security flaw that undermines the integrity of WordPress installations by enabling malicious actors to execute persistent cross-site scripting attacks. The vulnerability exists due to inadequate input sanitization and output escaping mechanisms that fail to properly validate or escape user-supplied attributes passed to the patreon shortcode, creating a persistent vector for code injection attacks.
The technical flaw stems from the plugin's failure to implement proper sanitization measures when processing shortcode attributes, particularly those related to the patreon functionality. According to CWE-79, this vulnerability falls under the category of Cross-Site Scripting, where the application fails to properly escape output before rendering user-supplied data. The issue is further classified as a stored XSS vulnerability because the malicious scripts are permanently stored within the plugin's data handling mechanisms, ensuring that the injected code executes every time affected pages are accessed. This type of vulnerability allows attackers to establish persistent footholds within WordPress environments.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant, as it requires only contributor-level access or higher to exploit, making it particularly dangerous in environments where multiple users have varying permission levels. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability to inject malicious scripts that execute whenever any user accesses pages containing the compromised shortcode, potentially leading to session hijacking, data exfiltration, or further privilege escalation. The vulnerability's persistence means that once exploited, the malicious code continues to execute until manually removed from the plugin's shortcode handling mechanisms. This attack vector aligns with ATT&CK technique T1548.003 for privilege escalation and T1059.001 for command and scripting interpreter usage.
Mitigation strategies should focus on immediate plugin updates to versions that address the sanitization and escaping issues, while also implementing additional security measures such as input validation at multiple layers and output encoding for all user-supplied data. Administrators should also consider implementing web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious script injection attempts, and conduct thorough security audits of all installed plugins to identify similar vulnerabilities. The remediation process should include monitoring for any signs of exploitation and ensuring that all WordPress installations maintain current security patches. Additionally, implementing role-based access controls and regular security assessments can help prevent unauthorized users from gaining the necessary privileges to exploit this vulnerability.