Assessment
Why it matters
CISA lists this vulnerability as known to be exploited; exploitation is confirmed; EPSS is 72.9%; technical severity is CVSS 6.1.
The social-warfare plugin before 3.5.3 for WordPress has stored XSS via the wp-admin/admin-post.php?swp_debug=load_options swp_url parameter, as exploited in the wild in March 2019. This affects Social Warfare and Social Warfare Pro.
Who should care
- Teams operating Social Warfare, Social Warfare Pro, Social Warfare Plugin
- Vulnerability and exposure management teams
- Security operations teams monitoring exploitation activity
Response plan
What I would do
- Confirm whether Social Warfare, Social Warfare Pro, Social Warfare Plugin is present in the environment.
- Identify affected versions and establish whether vulnerable services are exposed or reachable.
- Apply updates per vendor instructions.
- Review relevant security telemetry for evidence of attempted or successful exploitation.
- Document the remediation decision and track it to verified completion.
Treatment intelligence
Remediation intelligence
Vendor sources are listed before government and third-party guidance. Confirm product applicability and change prerequisites before deployment.
Verification noteAutomated link verification has not completed for this guidance yet.
Technical details
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CWE
- CWE-79
- Affected versions
- Warfareplugins Social Warfare (End Excluding 3.5.3); Warfareplugins Social Warfare Pro (End Excluding 3.5.3); WordPress Social Warfare Plugin
- Fixed versions
- Warfareplugins Social Warfare (Fixed from 3.5.3); Warfareplugins Social Warfare Pro (Fixed from 3.5.3)
- Published
- 24 March 2019
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- Required
Signal timeline
- CVE published
- Added to CISA KEV
- Latest EPSS score: 72.9%
- Signal calculated at 78
External references
- CISA Government advisory CVE-2019-9978
- Exploit information from packetstormsecurity.com
- Exploit information from packetstormsecurity.com
- Exploit information from blog.sucuri.net
- Twitter Third-party advisory 1108852747099652099
- Wordpress Technical reference Social Warfare
- Wpvulndb Third-party advisory
- Exploit information from www.cybersecurity-help.cz
- Exploit Db Exploit information
- Exploit information from www.pluginvulnerabilities.com
- Seclists Technical reference