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* Critical flaw in Elementor WordPress plugin may affect 500k sites
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*
CRITICAL FLAW IN ELEMENTOR WORDPRESS PLUGIN MAY AFFECT 500K SITES
By
BILL TOULAS
* April 13, 2022
* 10:51 AM
* 0
The authors of the Elementor Website Builder plugin for WordPress have just
released version 3.6.3 to address a critical remote code execution flaw that may
impact as many as 500,000 websites.
Although exploiting the flaw requires authentication, it's critical severity is
given by the fact that anyone logged into the vulnerable website can exploit it,
including regular subscribers.
A threat actor creating a normal user account on an affected website could
change the name and theme of the affected site making it look entirely
different.
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Security researchers believe that a non-logged in user could also exploit the
recently fixed flaw in Elementor plugin but they have not confirmed this
scenario.
VULNERABILITY DETAILS
In a report released this week by researchers at the WordPress security service
Plugin Vulnerabilities, who found the vulnerability, describe the technical
details behind the issue in Elementor.
The problem lies in the absence of a crucial access check on one of the plugin's
files, "module.php", which is loaded on every request during the admin_init
action, even for users that are not logged in, the researchers explain.
"The RCE vulnerability we found involves the function upload_and_install_pro()
accessible through the previous function. That function will install a WordPress
plugin sent with the request" - Plugin Vulnerabilities
One of the functions triggered by the admin_init action allows file upload in
the form of a WordPress plugin. A threat actor could place a malicious file
there to achieve remote code execution.
The file upload function (Plugin Vulnerabilities)
Activation of the injected malicious plugin (PV)
The researchers say that the only restriction in place is access to a valid
nonce. However, they found that the relevant nonce is present in "source code of
admin pages of WordPress that starts 'elementorCommonConfig', which is included
when logged in as a user with the Subscriber role."
IMPACT AND FIXING
According Plugin Vulnerabilities, the issue was introduced with Elementor 3.6.0,
released on March 22, 2022.
WordPress stats report that approximately 30.7% of Elementor's users have
upgraded to version 3.6.x, which indicates that the maximum number of
potentially affected sites is roughly 1,500,000.
The plugin has been downloaded a little over one million times today. Assuming
that all of them were for 3.6.3, there must still be around 500,000 vulnerable
websites out there.
The latest version includes a commit that implements an additional check on the
nonce access, using the "current_user_can" WordPress function.
Commit in Elementor addressing the security flaw (WordPress)
While this should address the security gap, the researchers haven't validated
the fix yet, and the Elementor team hasn't published any details about the
patch.
BleepingComputer has reached out to Elementor's security team, and will update
this article as soon as we receive a response.
Plugin Vulnerabilities has also published a proof of concept (PoC) to prove the
exploitability, increasing the risk of vulnerable websites to be compromised.
Admins are advised to apply the latest update available for the
Elementor WordPress plugin or remove the plugin from your website altogether.
RELATED ARTICLES:
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Trend Micro fixes actively exploited remote code execution bug
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BILL TOULAS
Bill Toulas is a technology writer and infosec news reporter with over a decade
of experience working on various online publications. An open source advocate
and Linux enthusiast, is currently finding pleasure in following hacks, malware
campaigns, and data breach incidents, as well as by exploring the intricate ways
through which tech is swiftly transforming our lives.
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