Bugs deemed ‘very straightforward to use as they require no stipulations’
Hide My WP, a preferred WordPress security plugin, contained a severe SQL injection (SQLi) vulnerability and a security flaw that enabled unauthenticated attackers to deactivate the software program.
Now patched, the bugs have been found by Dave Jong, CTO of WordPress-focused bug searching platform Patchstack, throughout an audit of plugins on a buyer’s web site.
The SQLi “is fairly extreme”, Jong informed The Each day Swig. “It permits anybody to extract info from the database, it has no stipulations. A device comparable to SQLmap may simply exploit this vulnerability.”
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The opposite vulnerability is much less extreme, “however may, beneath the precise circumstances, trigger a malicious person to proceed exploitation of a unique vulnerability”, added Jong.
Each flaws are “very straightforward to use as they require no stipulations”, he warned.
SQLi in SQLi protection software program
Claiming more than 26,000 customers, Hide My WP hides WordPress installations from malicious hackers, spammers, and theme detectors by numerous means.
The plugin, which features a function that blocks SQLi and XSS assaults, itself contained an SQLi bug due to how the IP tackle was retrieved and used inside SQL queries.
“The perform tries to retrieve the IP tackle from a number of headers, together with IP tackle headers which might be spoofed by the person comparable to ,” reads a weblog publish printed by Jong yesterday (November 24).
“By supplying a malicious payload in one among these IP tackle headers, will probably be immediately inserted into the SQL question which makes SQL injection potential.”
Reset token
In the meantime, a reset token – – “will likely be immediately printed onto the display which may then be used to deactivate the plugin within the file (situated within the root folder of the plugin),” defined Jong, including the caveat that there have to be a sound token with a non-empty worth.
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“Just by visiting a URL comparable to we are able to make it show the reset token on the display,” he added.
‘Optimistic information’
Jong mentioned he found the vulnerability, notified the plugin’s developer, wpWave, and launched a ‘virtual patch’ to premium Patchstack customers on September 29.
On October 5, after wpWave failed to reply, he alerted Envato, which responded inside minutes and promptly eliminated the plugin, briefly, from its codecanyon.internet market.
Jong praised wpWave for quickly addressing each flaws in Hide My WP model 6.2.4, launched on October 26.
“I want to stress that such security enhancements must be coated as optimistic information for the [open source] ecosystem,” he mentioned. “The truth that you haven’t heard a few vulnerability being fastened in another plugins doesn’t imply the vulnerabilities aren’t there – however would possibly imply they’re simply not addressed.”
Patchstack’s CTO invited different researchers and builders to report any bugs present in WordPress plugins to Patchstack’s WordPress plugin-specific bounty program.
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