CVE-2024-2836 in Social Share, Social Login and Social Comments Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 04/15/2024
The Social Share, Social Login and Social Comments Plugin WordPress plugin before 7.13.64 does not sanitise and escape some of its settings, which could allow high privilege users such as editors to perform Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when unfiltered_html is disallowed
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/09/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-2836 affects the Social Share, Social Login and Social Comments WordPress plugin version 7.13.64 and earlier. This issue represents a critical security flaw that undermines the plugin's ability to properly handle user input, creating opportunities for malicious actors to exploit cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. The vulnerability specifically targets the plugin's settings handling mechanisms, where insufficient sanitization and escaping of user-provided data creates persistent security risks within WordPress environments.
The technical flaw stems from the plugin's failure to adequately sanitize and escape certain configuration settings within its administrative interfaces. When high-privilege users such as editors attempt to modify plugin settings, the application does not properly validate or escape potentially malicious input before storing or rendering it. This weakness allows attackers to inject malicious scripts that can execute in the context of other users' browsers. The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it can be exploited even when WordPress is configured to disallow unfiltered_html, which typically serves as a critical security boundary for preventing script injection attacks.
This vulnerability impacts the operational security posture of WordPress installations by enabling privilege escalation through cross-site scripting attacks. High-privilege users with editor-level access can leverage this flaw to inject malicious JavaScript code that persists within the plugin's settings. The malicious code can then execute in the browsers of other users who view the affected administrative interfaces, potentially leading to session hijacking, data exfiltration, or further compromise of the WordPress environment. The attack vector specifically targets the administrative settings pages where users can configure social sharing, login, and commenting features.
The security implications extend beyond immediate script execution, as this vulnerability can facilitate more sophisticated attacks within the WordPress ecosystem. Attackers could potentially use the injected scripts to manipulate plugin functionality, steal user credentials, or establish persistent access to compromised sites. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79, which describes cross-site scripting flaws, and represents a failure in input validation and output encoding practices. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving command and control communications and credential access through web application exploitation, potentially enabling adversaries to maintain long-term presence within compromised WordPress environments.
Organizations should immediately update to plugin version 7.13.64 or later to remediate this vulnerability, as the patch addresses the core sanitization and escaping issues in the affected settings handling code. Administrators should also conduct thorough security audits of their WordPress installations to identify any potential exploitation attempts, monitor for unusual administrative activities, and ensure that proper input validation mechanisms are in place across all plugin components. Additionally, implementing web application firewalls and monitoring for suspicious script injection patterns can provide additional layers of protection against exploitation attempts.