Ivory Search Cross-site Scripting

The Ivory Search WordPress plugin before 5.4.1 does not escape some of the Form settings, which could allow high privilege users to perform Cross-Site Scripting attacks even when the unfiltered_html capability is disallowed. (2022-02-07, CVE-2021-25105)

Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in WordPress Ivory Search plugin (versions <= 4.6.6). Vulnerable parameter: &post. (2021-10-21, CVE-2021-36869)

The Search Forms page of the Ivory Search WordPress lugin before 4.6.1 did not properly sanitise the tab parameter before output it in the page, leading to a reflected Cross-Site Scripting issue when opening a malicious crafted link as a high privilege user. Knowledge of a form id is required to conduct the attack. (2021-04-22, CVE-2021-24234)

Cross site scripting is an attack where a web page executes code that is injected by an adversary. It usually appears, when users input is presented. This attack can be used to impersonate a user, take over control of the session, or even steal API keys.

The attack can be executed e.g. when you application injects the request parameter directly into the HTML code of the page returned to the user:

https://server.com/confirmation?message=Transaction+Complete

what results in:

<span>Confirmation: Transaction Complete</span>

In that case the message can be modified to become a valid Javascript code, e.g.:

https://server.com/confirmation?message=<script>dangerous javascript code here</script>

and it will be executed locally by the user's browser with full access to the user's personal application/browser data:

<span>Confirmation: <script>dangerous javascript code here</script></span>