CVE-2022-44630: YITH WooCommerce Slider CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2022-44630 Overview

CVE-2022-44630 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability [CWE-352] in the YITH WooCommerce Product Slider Carousel plugin for WordPress. The flaw affects all versions up to and including 1.16.0. An attacker can craft a malicious web page or link that, when visited by an authenticated WordPress user, triggers unauthorized state-changing actions in the plugin. Exploitation requires user interaction and a logged-in privileged session. Patchstack published the advisory referenced by this CVE.

Critical Impact

Successful exploitation enables an attacker to perform unauthorized plugin actions on behalf of an authenticated WordPress user, resulting in limited integrity and confidentiality impact on the affected store.

Affected Products

• YITH WooCommerce Product Slider Carousel plugin for WordPress
• All versions from initial release through 1.16.0
• WordPress sites running WooCommerce with this plugin installed and active

Discovery Timeline

• 2026-06-11 - CVE-2022-44630 published to NVD
• 2026-06-11 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2022-44630

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability stems from missing or improperly validated anti-CSRF tokens on one or more administrative endpoints of the YITH WooCommerce Product Slider Carousel plugin. WordPress provides the wp_nonce_field() and check_admin_referer() primitives to prevent forged requests. The affected plugin code path does not verify a valid nonce before executing privileged actions. This allows an attacker-controlled origin to submit requests using the victim's authenticated browser session.

The attack requires the victim to be logged into WordPress and to visit a page controlled by the attacker. The request executes with the victim's privileges within the same-origin browser session. Impact is constrained to actions exposed through the vulnerable handler, which limits confidentiality and integrity scope.

Root Cause

The root cause is the absence of a verified CSRF token on state-changing request handlers in the plugin. Without nonce validation, the server cannot distinguish requests intentionally initiated by the user from requests triggered by a malicious third-party site. This is a classic violation of the same-origin request authenticity model that WordPress enforces through nonces.

Attack Vector

The attack vector is network-based and requires user interaction. An attacker hosts a page containing an automatically submitting HTML form or an embedded image or fetch request targeting the vulnerable plugin endpoint. When a logged-in WordPress administrator or privileged user visits that page, the browser sends authenticated cookies along with the forged request. The plugin executes the request as if the user initiated it. No authentication bypass occurs because the attack abuses the victim's existing session rather than stealing credentials.

Refer to the Patchstack Vulnerability Advisory for additional technical context.

Detection Methods for CVE-2022-44630

Indicators of Compromise

• Administrative actions on the YITH Product Slider Carousel plugin originating from unexpected Referer headers or cross-origin contexts.
• Plugin configuration changes that do not correlate with a known administrator session or audit log entry.
• Unusual POST requests to plugin endpoints lacking a valid WordPress _wpnonce parameter.

Detection Strategies

• Inspect web server access logs for POST requests to plugin admin endpoints with Referer headers pointing to external domains.
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule that flags or blocks state-changing requests to /wp-admin/ paths missing a nonce parameter.
• Correlate WordPress audit log events with administrator browser activity to identify actions taken without a corresponding admin UI interaction.

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable a WordPress activity logging plugin to record configuration changes, plugin setting modifications, and administrative actions.
• Monitor for sudden changes to product slider or carousel configuration immediately after an administrator visits an external URL.
• Alert on outbound HTTP referrals from administrator sessions to untrusted domains during active admin workflows.

How to Mitigate CVE-2022-44630

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the YITH WooCommerce Product Slider Carousel plugin to a version later than 1.16.0 once the vendor publishes a fixed release.
• Audit WordPress user accounts and reduce the number of users holding administrator or shop-manager roles.
• Require administrators to log out of WordPress before browsing unrelated external sites in the same browser profile.

Patch Information

Review the Patchstack Vulnerability Advisory for the current patched version and remediation guidance. Apply the vendor-supplied update through the WordPress plugin manager or by replacing the plugin files manually. Verify the installed version after upgrade.

Workarounds

• Deactivate the YITH WooCommerce Product Slider Carousel plugin until a patched version is installed if the functionality is non-essential.
• Deploy a WAF policy that requires a valid Referer or Origin header matching the WordPress site for all /wp-admin/POST requests.
• Use a dedicated browser or browser profile for WordPress administration to limit cross-site cookie exposure.

# Example WAF rule snippet (ModSecurity) to block cross-origin admin POSTs
SecRule REQUEST_METHOD "@streq POST" \
  "chain,id:1004463,phase:1,deny,status:403,msg:'Cross-origin WP admin POST blocked'"
  SecRule REQUEST_URI "@beginsWith /wp-admin/" \
    "chain"
    SecRule REQUEST_HEADERS:Origin "!@beginsWith https://your-site.example" \
      "t:none"