CVE-2024-4449 in Essential Addons for Elementor Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 05/14/2024
The Essential Addons for Elementor – Best Elementor Templates, Widgets, Kits & WooCommerce Builders plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the plugin's 'Fancy Text', 'Filter Gallery', 'Sticky Video', 'Content Ticker', 'Woo Product Gallery', & 'Twitter Feed' widgets in all versions up to, and including, 5.9.19 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 • 03/31/2025
The Essential Addons for Elementor plugin represents a widely used WordPress extension that provides various widgets and templates for building websites with the Elementor page builder. This particular vulnerability affects versions up to and including 5.9.19, making it a significant concern for WordPress sites that rely on this plugin for their frontend functionality. The vulnerability stems from inadequate input sanitization and output escaping mechanisms within several core widgets that are commonly used by content creators and site administrators.
The technical flaw manifests in the plugin's handling of user-supplied attributes within specific widgets including Fancy Text, Filter Gallery, Sticky Video, Content Ticker, Woo Product Gallery, and Twitter Feed. These widgets accept input from users who possess contributor-level access or higher privileges, which creates an attack vector where malicious actors can inject malicious scripts into the plugin's configuration parameters. The vulnerability is classified as stored XSS because the injected scripts are permanently stored within the plugin's data structures and executed whenever affected pages are accessed by other users, regardless of their privilege level.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is substantial as it allows authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary web scripts in the context of affected websites. This means that any user with contributor-level access or higher can potentially compromise the site's security by injecting malicious code into the plugin's widgets. The stored nature of the vulnerability ensures that the malicious scripts persist and execute automatically whenever legitimate users access pages containing the injected content. This creates a persistent threat that can be exploited for various malicious purposes including session hijacking, data exfiltration, or redirecting users to phishing sites.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which describes Cross-Site Scripting flaws in software applications, specifically addressing the improper handling of untrusted data in web applications. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to T1566.001 which covers "Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment" and T1059.001 which covers "Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell" through the execution of malicious scripts. The attack chain typically involves an authenticated user with sufficient privileges to modify plugin settings, followed by the injection of malicious payloads that execute in the browsers of other users who access affected pages.
Mitigation strategies should prioritize immediate patching to versions that address the XSS vulnerability, as well as implementing strict access controls to limit contributor-level privileges to only trusted users. Additional defensive measures include implementing Content Security Policy headers, regular security audits of plugin configurations, and monitoring for unauthorized modifications to plugin widgets. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious script injection attempts, while conducting regular vulnerability assessments to identify other potential entry points that could be exploited in similar fashion.