CVE-2024-37458 in Highlight Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 01/02/2025
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in ExtendThemes Highlight allows Cross Site Request Forgery.This issue affects Highlight: from n/a through 1.0.29.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/16/2025
The Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-37458 resides within the ExtendThemes Highlight plugin, representing a critical security flaw that undermines the integrity of web applications. This vulnerability enables malicious actors to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users, exploiting the fundamental weakness in the plugin's request validation mechanisms. The affected version range spans from the initial release through 1.0.29, indicating a prolonged period during which the plugin remained susceptible to this particular attack vector. The vulnerability directly impacts the plugin's ability to distinguish between legitimate user requests and maliciously crafted requests originating from external domains.
The technical implementation of this CSRF flaw stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF tokens or validation mechanisms within the plugin's processing logic. When users interact with the Highlight plugin, the system fails to adequately verify the origin of requests, allowing attackers to craft malicious web pages that automatically submit requests to the vulnerable plugin. This weakness aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities, and demonstrates how inadequate input validation and request verification can lead to unauthorized privilege escalation. The vulnerability operates by leveraging the browser's automatic handling of cookies and session information, where authenticated requests are automatically included with credentials from the victim's browser context.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data manipulation, potentially enabling attackers to perform administrative actions within the plugin's scope. An attacker could exploit this flaw to modify plugin settings, alter content, or potentially gain elevated privileges depending on the plugin's access controls. The consequences are particularly severe in environments where the plugin is used for content management or administrative functions, as unauthorized modifications could lead to complete compromise of the affected website's functionality. This vulnerability also aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566, which covers credential harvesting through social engineering, as the attack relies on exploiting user sessions without requiring explicit credential theft.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must include immediate implementation of anti-CSRF tokens within all user-facing plugin actions, ensuring that each request includes a unique, unpredictable value that can be validated server-side. The plugin should implement proper origin validation and implement the use of SameSite cookies to prevent unauthorized cross-origin requests from being automatically included with user sessions. Additionally, developers should enforce strict input validation and implement proper request verification mechanisms that can detect and reject requests lacking proper authentication tokens. The recommended approach also involves updating to the latest available version of the Highlight plugin, as version 1.0.30 or later should contain the necessary security patches to address this vulnerability. Organizations should also conduct comprehensive security audits of their plugin ecosystem to identify similar vulnerabilities in other third-party components, as CSRF attacks remain a prevalent threat vector in web application security.