This article is a part of our Vulnerability Database (back to index)
Cross-Site Request Forgery occurrences in Responsive Menu
In the Reponsive Menu (free and Pro) WordPress plugins before 4.0.4, attackers could craft a request and trick an administrator into importing all new settings. These settings could be modified to include malicious JavaScript, therefore allowing an attacker to inject payloads that could aid in further infection of the site. (2021-04-05, CVE-2021-24162)
In the Reponsive Menu (free and Pro) WordPress plugins before 4.0.4, attackers could craft a request and trick an administrator into uploading a zip archive containing malicious PHP files. The attacker could then access those files to achieve remote code execution and further infect the targeted site. (2021-04-05, CVE-2021-24161)
Why Cross-Site Request Forgery can be dangerous
The absence of Anti-CSRF tokens may lead to a Cross-Site Request Forgery attack that can result in executing a specific application action as another logged in user, e.g. steal their account by changing their email and password or silently adding a new admin user account when executed from the administrator account.
The attacker may copy one of your web application forms, e.g. email/password change form.
The webpage will contain a form with the exact set of fields as the original application but with input values already provided and the submit button replaced with a Javascript code causing auto-submission. When the page is accessed the form will be immediately submitted and page contents replaced with a valid content or a redirect to your original application.
One of your application users who is already logged in can be then tricked to navigate to such malicious page e.g. by clicking a link in a phishing email, and the pre-populated form content will be submitted to your application like it would be submitted by your user.