WordPress 5.1.1 patches dangerous XSS vulnerability

From nakedsecurity.sophos.com

Researchers have offered more detail on a recently patched vulnerability that would allow an attacker to take over a WordPress site using something as simple as a maliciously crafted comment.

Discovered by RIPS Technologies, the flaw is a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) flaw that exists on any site running version 5.1 or earlier with default settings and comments enabled.

The problem at the heart of this flaw is the problem of how WordPress protects itself (or rather, doesn’t) from CSRF-based takeovers in comments.

CSRF attacks happen when an attacker hijacks an authenticated user session so that the malicious instructions appear to come from that user’s browser.

In the case of the latest flaw, all the attacker has to do is lure a WordPress admin to a malicious website serving a cross-site scripting (XSS) payload.

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