CVE-2024-4041

Vulnerability

The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress versions up to and including 22.5 are vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping when handling URLs. The vulnerability resides in the short link helper class [2], where user-supplied data is improperly processed before being included in generated URLs.

Exploitation

An unauthenticated attacker can craft a malicious URL containing arbitrary JavaScript and trick a victim into clicking it (e.g., via phishing). No special privileges are required; the attack only needs user interaction.

Impact

Successful exploitation allows the attacker to inject arbitrary web scripts in the context of the victim's browser. This can lead to session hijacking, data exfiltration, or other malicious actions on the affected WordPress site.

Mitigation

Update to Yoast SEO version 22.6 or later, which contains the fix. As of the publication date, no workaround is available.