This vulnerability could be used by authenticated attackers, with authenticated access, to update arbitrary options and leverage that for privilege escalation.
Props to Lucio Sá who discovered and responsibly reported this vulnerability through the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program.
Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, and Wordfence Response users received a firewall rule to protect against any exploits targeting this vulnerability on December 12, 2023.
Sites still using the free version of Wordfence received the same protection on January 11, 2024.
We contacted the Cookie Information Team on December 12, 2023, but we didn't get any response, so we escalated it to the WordPress.org Security Team on January 25, 2024.
This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access or higher, to edit arbitrary site options which can be used to create administrator accounts.
The plugin's form integration options are listed on the admin page.
This makes it possible to update the options arbitrarily.
As with any Arbitrary Options Update vulnerability, this can be used for complete site compromise by setting the default registration role to administrator.
Once an attacker has edited the site options to create an administrative account on the WordPress site, they can then manipulate anything on the targeted site, just like a normal administrator would.
This includes the ability to upload plugin and theme files, which can be malicious zip files containing backdoors, and modifying posts and pages which can be leveraged to redirect site users to other malicious sites.
The following graphic demonstrates the steps to exploitation an attacker might take and at which point the Wordfence firewall would block an attacker from successfully exploiting the vulnerability.
The Wordfence firewall rule detects the malicious AJAX action and blocks the request if it does not come from an existing authorized administrator.
December 12, 2023 - Wordfence Premium, Care, and Response users receive a firewall rule to provide protection against any exploits that may target this vulnerability.
January 11, 2024 - Wordfence Free users receive the same protection.
January 25, 2024 - We escalate the vulnerability to the WordPress.org Security Team and send over the full disclosure details.
January 29, 2024 - The fully patched version of the plugin, 2.0.23, is released.
This vulnerability allows authenticated threat actors with subscriber-level permissions or higher to edit arbitrary site options which can be used to create administrator accounts.
The vulnerability has been fully addressed in version 2.0.23 of the plugin.
If you know someone who uses this plugin on their site, we recommend sharing this advisory with them to ensure their site remains secure, as this vulnerability poses a significant risk.
This Cyber News was published on www.wordfence.com. Publication date: Tue, 06 Feb 2024 16:13:03 +0000