CVE-2026-22360 in SearchAzon Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 01/22/2026
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in AA-Team SearchAzon searchazon allows Cross Site Request Forgery.This issue affects SearchAzon: from n/a through <= 1.4.
If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/28/2026
The CVE-2026-22360 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the AA-Team SearchAzon plugin, specifically impacting versions through 1.4. This vulnerability resides in the searchazon component that facilitates search functionality within WordPress environments, creating a significant security risk for affected systems. The flaw stems from inadequate validation of request origins and missing anti-forgery tokens in the plugin's administrative interfaces, allowing malicious actors to execute unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users.
This CSRF vulnerability operates through the exploitation of the plugin's lack of proper origin verification mechanisms and absence of cryptographic tokens that would normally prevent unauthorized requests from being processed. The technical implementation fails to validate that requests originate from legitimate sources within the same domain, enabling attackers to craft malicious requests that appear to come from trusted administrative interfaces. The vulnerability specifically affects the plugin's search and configuration interfaces where administrative actions can be triggered through web requests without proper authentication checks.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft or modification, as it can enable complete compromise of affected WordPress installations through unauthorized administrative actions. Attackers could potentially modify search configurations, inject malicious content, or manipulate search results to redirect users to phishing sites. The vulnerability's severity is amplified by the fact that it affects the plugin's core functionality, making it particularly dangerous in environments where search functionality is heavily utilized. According to CWE-352, this represents a classic cross-site request forgery implementation that violates the principle of least privilege by allowing unauthorized actions to be performed with elevated privileges.
The exploitation of this vulnerability typically involves crafting malicious web pages or emails that contain hidden requests to the target WordPress installation, which automatically executes administrative functions when the victim visits the malicious page while authenticated. This attack vector aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for initial access through spearphishing attachments, and T1078.004 for valid accounts usage. The vulnerability's persistence across multiple versions indicates a fundamental flaw in the plugin's security architecture that requires immediate remediation.
Mitigation strategies should focus on implementing proper anti-forgery token validation mechanisms and enforcing strict origin verification for all administrative requests. System administrators should immediately upgrade to the latest version of the SearchAzon plugin where this vulnerability has been addressed. Additional protective measures include implementing web application firewalls, monitoring for suspicious administrative requests, and ensuring that administrative interfaces require multi-factor authentication. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of input validation and request origin verification as outlined in OWASP Top 10 categories and aligns with NIST SP 800-53 security controls for access control and audit logging. Organizations should conduct immediate security assessments to identify any potential exploitation attempts and ensure that all plugin components maintain proper security boundaries and authentication mechanisms.