Vulnerability research

CVE-2021-3258: stored XSS in a Question2Answer plugin

2017 to 2021

Context

Question2Answer (Q2A) is an open-source platform for question-and-answer communities. Sites extend it with plugins such as Q2A Ultimate SEO.

Approach

1Found a stored cross-site scripting flaw in Q2A Ultimate SEO version 1.3
2Showed how injected script could be chained toward account takeover and defacement
3Reported it so the issue could be fixed before details were published

Outcome

Recorded as CVE-2021-3258 (published 5 February 2021), CWE-79, CVSS 3.1 base score 5.4 (medium) in the NIST National Vulnerability Database.

Next case note

GHDB-ID 4997: finding exposed application secrets

Security research · 2018Misconfigured deployments sometimes publish their environment files, exposing application keys and debug settings to anyone with a search engine.Read it

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