CVE-2024-4041
Published: 14 May 2024
Summary
CVE-2024-4041 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Wordpress (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 6.1 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 9.6% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress is affected by a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability in all versions through 22.5. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-4041 and assigned CWE-79, stems from insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on URLs and allows arbitrary script injection through the plugin's admin bar menu and short-link handling components.
Unauthenticated attackers can exploit the issue by crafting malicious URLs that, when clicked by a victim, execute attacker-supplied scripts in the context of the affected site. The attack requires user interaction such as following a link and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 6.1 with network attack vector, low complexity, and no required privileges.
The supplied references point to specific source files in the wordpress-seo repository and a changeset that addresses the affected short-link and admin-bar code paths, indicating the issue was resolved by updating input handling in those components. The EPSS score has remained flat at 0.0551 with no material increase after disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-32606
Vulnerability details
The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via URLs in all versions up to, and including, 22.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary…
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web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking on a link.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Penetration testing submits XSS payloads to web applications, detecting cross-site scripting flaws for subsequent remediation.
Validates web inputs to reject script-related content that could produce XSS.
Output validation against expected content can reject or sanitize script content in generated web pages, reducing XSS exploitability.