This article is a part of our Vulnerability Database (back to index)
Cross-site Scripting occurrences in Simple Seo
The Simple SEO plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to attribute-based stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including 1.7.91, due to insufficient sanitization or escaping on the SEO social and standard title parameters. This can be exploited by authenticated users with Contributor and above permissions to inject arbitrary web scripts into posts/pages that execute whenever an administrator access the page. (2022-09-06, CVE-2022-1628)
Why Cross-site Scripting can be dangerous
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>