CVE-2024-12749 Scanner

The WordPress Competition Form Plugin is widely used by website administrators who manage competitions or forms on websites built with WordPress. It is created to facilitate the collection and organization of entries or user data through forms. This plugin is often used by marketers, event organizers, or businesses to run competitions, manage participant data, and enhance user interaction on their sites. The plugin integrates seamlessly with WordPress, which makes it popular among users familiar with the WordPress environment. Its powerful features allow for straightforward setup and efficient management of multiple form submissions in competition scenarios. Due to its user-friendly interface and customizable options, it is a preferred tool for enhancing the competition management experience.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a vulnerability that allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users. When these scripts are executed, they can run arbitrary code, potentially leading to session hijacking, sensitive information theft, or privilege escalation. In the case of the WordPress Competition Form Plugin, this vulnerability arises due to insufficient sanitization of input data, particularly the lack of escaping and sanitization of parameters before outputting them to a page. This weakness allows an attacker to craft a malicious page that, when visited by a user with high privileges, can execute scripts in their context. It poses a significant security risk, especially in scenarios involving high privilege users.

Technical details of the vulnerability include the vulnerable endpoint and parameters that fail to sanitize and escape user-provided data properly. The critical endpoint in the plugin lacks proper filtering mechanisms, allowing execution of harmful scripts. This vulnerability is exploited by crafting a URL with unsanitized scripts, which, when accessed, triggers the script execution in the vulnerable environment. Parameters involved are directly related to the output generation in the plugin's admin pages, where user interaction is expected. The manipulation and injection of scripts in such parameters create opportunities for attacks on unsuspecting users.

When this XSS vulnerability is exploited, it can lead to several adverse outcomes. Attackers might gain access to sensitive user sessions, allowing them to hijack user identity or privileges. This can lead to unauthorized actions being performed on the website or access to confidential user information. Moreover, an attacker could use the vulnerability as a stepping stone for further attacks, such as privilege escalation, which amplifies the risk of severe system compromises. The implications can be particularly damaging in environments where high privilege users are involved, potentially impacting site integrity, reputation, and data security.

REFERENCES

• https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/478316b9-9f47-4aa6-92c6-03879f16a3e5/
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-12749