CVE-2024-2603 in Salon Booking System Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 04/26/2024
The Salon booking system WordPress plugin through 9.6.5 does not sanitise and escape some of its settings, which could allow high privilege users such as admin (or editor depending on Salon booking system WordPress plugin through 9.6.5 configuration) to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed (for example in multisite setup)
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/19/2025
The CVE-2024-2603 vulnerability affects the Salon booking system WordPress plugin version 9.6.5 and earlier, representing a critical stored cross-site scripting flaw that exploits insufficient input sanitization and output escaping mechanisms within the plugin's administrative settings. This vulnerability specifically targets high-privilege users including administrators and editors who possess the capability to modify plugin configurations, creating a significant attack surface that could be leveraged by malicious actors to compromise WordPress installations. The flaw exists in the plugin's handling of user-controllable data within its settings interface, where improperly sanitized parameters are directly stored and subsequently rendered without adequate HTML escaping, enabling persistent malicious script execution.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from the plugin's failure to properly validate and sanitize user inputs in its administrative configuration sections, particularly affecting parameters that are later output to web pages without appropriate encoding or escaping. According to CWE classification, this represents a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability (CWE-079) where malicious code is stored on the server and executed when other users access the affected pages. The vulnerability's exploitation requires an attacker to possess administrative or editor privileges within the WordPress environment, though the impact extends beyond the immediate user's session to affect all users who access pages containing the maliciously stored content. The attack vector specifically involves the manipulation of plugin settings through the WordPress admin interface, where the stored malicious payload persists and executes in the context of other users' browsers.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-2603 is substantial, as it allows attackers with sufficient privileges to establish persistent backdoors, steal session cookies, perform unauthorized actions on behalf of other users, or redirect victims to malicious websites. In a typical WordPress multisite environment where unfiltered_html capabilities are restricted for security purposes, this vulnerability becomes particularly dangerous as it circumvents the intended security controls by exploiting the plugin's own administrative interfaces. The vulnerability's persistence means that once successfully exploited, the malicious scripts remain active until manually removed from the plugin settings, potentially providing attackers with extended access to compromised systems. The affected plugin versions through 9.6.5 create a window of opportunity for attackers to establish long-term presence within WordPress installations, particularly in environments where multiple users have administrative access.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2024-2603 should prioritize immediate plugin updates to versions that address the sanitization and escaping issues, as recommended by the plugin developers and WordPress security teams. Organizations should implement strict access controls and privilege management, ensuring that only trusted administrators have access to plugin configuration interfaces. Additionally, security monitoring should include regular inspection of plugin settings for suspicious content, and network segmentation should be employed to limit the potential impact of successful exploitation. The vulnerability's classification under ATT&CK framework as a privilege escalation technique (T1068) highlights the importance of maintaining least privilege principles and implementing comprehensive security controls around administrative interfaces. Regular security audits of WordPress plugins and themes should be conducted to identify similar sanitization issues, while automated scanning tools can help detect potentially malicious content within plugin configurations. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls and content security policies to provide additional defense-in-depth measures against exploitation attempts.