CVE-2024-7769 is a medium-severity vulnerability classified as CWE-79 (Cross-Site Scripting, XSS) affecting the ClickSold IDX WordPress plugin up to version 1.90. The vulnerability arises because the plugin fails to properly sanitize and escape certain settings inputs. This flaw allows users with high privileges, such as administrators, to inject and store malicious scripts within the plugin's settings. Notably, this attack vector remains exploitable even when the WordPress capability 'unfiltered_html' is disabled, such as in multisite environments, which typically restricts HTML input to prevent XSS. The vulnerability requires high privilege (admin-level) access and user interaction to trigger the stored XSS payload, which can lead to the execution of arbitrary JavaScript in the context of other administrators or users viewing the affected settings pages. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 4.8 (medium), reflecting a network attack vector with low attack complexity but requiring high privileges and user interaction. The impact includes limited confidentiality and integrity loss, such as session hijacking, privilege escalation, or unauthorized actions performed by the victim administrator. Availability impact is not present. No known exploits are reported in the wild, and no patches are currently linked, indicating the need for proactive mitigation by affected users. The vulnerability affects the ClickSold IDX plugin, which is used to integrate real estate IDX listings into WordPress sites, commonly by real estate agencies and related businesses.

For European organizations, especially those in the real estate sector or digital agencies managing WordPress sites with the ClickSold IDX plugin, this vulnerability poses a risk of stored XSS attacks that can compromise administrative accounts. Exploitation could lead to session hijacking, unauthorized administrative actions, or the injection of malicious content affecting site integrity and user trust. While the vulnerability requires administrative privileges to exploit, compromised admin accounts or insider threats could leverage this flaw to escalate attacks. In multisite WordPress setups common in larger organizations, the inability to rely on 'unfiltered_html' restrictions increases the risk. The impact on confidentiality and integrity of data is moderate, potentially exposing sensitive business information or enabling further compromise of the WordPress environment. Although availability is not directly affected, reputational damage and operational disruptions from incident response could be significant. Given the widespread use of WordPress in Europe and the presence of real estate businesses relying on IDX plugins, the threat is relevant but limited to organizations using this specific plugin.

1. Immediate mitigation involves restricting administrative access to trusted personnel only and enforcing strong authentication mechanisms such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of privilege abuse. 2. Regularly audit WordPress user roles and capabilities to ensure no unnecessary high privileges are granted. 3. Monitor and review plugin settings pages for suspicious or unexpected content that could indicate attempted XSS payload insertion. 4. Implement Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to limit the impact of potential XSS by restricting script execution sources. 5. Until an official patch is released, consider temporarily disabling or removing the ClickSold IDX plugin if feasible, or isolate its usage to less critical environments. 6. Keep WordPress core and all plugins updated and subscribe to vulnerability advisories for timely patch application once available. 7. Employ web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules to detect and block common XSS payloads targeting administrative interfaces. 8. Educate administrators on the risks of stored XSS and safe handling of plugin settings inputs.