CVE-2024-3899 in Gallery Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 09/11/2024
The Gallery Plugin for WordPress WordPress plugin before 1.8.15 does not sanitise and escape some of its image settings, which could allow users with post-writing privilege such as Author to perform Cross-Site Scripting attacks.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/10/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-3899 affects the Gallery Plugin for WordPress, specifically versions prior to 1.8.15, presenting a critical cross-site scripting risk that could be exploited by users with minimal privileges. This flaw resides in the plugin's handling of image settings where insufficient sanitization and escaping mechanisms allow malicious input to persist and execute within the web application's context. The vulnerability specifically targets users who possess post-writing privileges such as Authors, making it particularly concerning given the common practice of granting these roles to content creators who may not have full administrative oversight. The security implications extend beyond simple privilege escalation as this vulnerability enables attackers to inject malicious scripts that can compromise user sessions, steal sensitive information, or redirect victims to malicious sites. The flaw demonstrates a classic failure in input validation and output encoding practices that are fundamental to preventing XSS attacks in web applications.
The technical mechanism of this vulnerability stems from the plugin's failure to properly sanitize user-provided image settings before storing or rendering them within the WordPress environment. When authors create or edit posts containing gallery images, they can input malicious script code into image-related fields such as alt text, captions, or other metadata attributes. The plugin's inadequate sanitization process fails to strip or encode potentially dangerous characters and script tags, allowing these inputs to be stored in the database and subsequently executed when other users view the affected content. This represents a direct violation of secure coding principles and aligns with CWE-79, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Scripting vulnerabilities in web applications. The vulnerability's exploitation pathway follows the typical XSS attack pattern where untrusted data flows from user input through the application's processing logic to the user's browser without proper sanitization or encoding.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-3899 extends far beyond the immediate scope of the affected plugin, as it provides attackers with a vector for broader system compromise. Authors with access to WordPress environments can leverage this vulnerability to establish persistent access to user sessions, potentially leading to full administrative compromise of the affected WordPress installation. The attack surface expands significantly when considering that WordPress installations often contain multiple plugins and themes that may share similar vulnerabilities, creating cascading security risks. Additionally, the vulnerability enables attackers to perform session hijacking, defacement of content, and data exfiltration activities that can severely impact organizational security posture. The low privilege requirement for exploitation makes this vulnerability particularly dangerous as it can be leveraged by attackers with minimal access rights, potentially serving as an initial foothold for more extensive attacks within the network infrastructure.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigation strategies including updating the Gallery Plugin to version 1.8.15 or later, which contains the necessary sanitization and escaping fixes. The remediation process should also include implementing proper input validation at multiple layers of the application architecture, including client-side and server-side checks. Security teams should conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify other potential XSS vulnerabilities within the WordPress environment and related plugins. The implementation of Content Security Policy headers can provide additional defense-in-depth measures to mitigate the impact of any remaining XSS vulnerabilities. Regular security monitoring and automated vulnerability scanning should be established to detect similar issues in other third-party components. This vulnerability underscores the importance of adhering to security best practices such as those outlined in the OWASP Top Ten and the ATT&CK framework's defensive strategies for preventing and detecting web application vulnerabilities. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls and input validation mechanisms to provide additional protection against similar XSS attack vectors.