Critical Bug in WordPress Theme Plugin Opens 200,000 Sites to Hackers

Feb 17, 2020

A popular WordPress theme plugin with over 200,000 active
installations contains a severe but easy-to-exploit software
vulnerability that, if left unpatched, could let unauthenticated
remote attackers compromise a wide range of websites and blogs.

The vulnerable plugin in question is ‘ThemeGrill Demo
Importer‘ that comes with free as well as premium themes sold
by the software development company ThemeGrill.

ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin has been designed to allow
WordPress site admins to import demo content, widgets, and settings
from ThemeGrill, making it easier for them to quickly customize the
theme.

According to a report ^[1] WebARX shared with The
Hacker News, when a ThemeGrill theme is installed and activated,
the affected plugin executes some functions with administrative
privileges without checking whether the user running the code is
authenticated and is an admin.

The flaw could eventually allow unauthenticated remote attackers
to wipe the entire database of targeted websites to its default
state, after which they will also be automatically logged in as an
administrator, allowing them to take complete control over the
sites.

“Here we see (in the screenshot) that there is no authentication
check, and only the do_reset_wordpress parameter needs to be
present in the URL on any ‘admin’ based page of WordPress,
including /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php.”

According to the WebARX researchers, the vulnerability affects
ThemeGrill Demo
Importer plugin version 1.3.4 up to 1.6.1, all released in the
last 3 years.
^[2]

“This is a serious vulnerability and can cause a significant amount
of damage. Since it requires no suspicious-looking payload, it is
not expected for any firewall to block this by default, and a
special rule needs to be created to block this vulnerability,” said
Oliver Sild, the CEO of WebARX.

WebARX team responsibly reported this vulnerability to
ThemeGrill developers two weeks ago, who then released a patched
version 1.6.2 on February 16.

WordPress Dashboard automatically notifies admins when a plugin
needs to be updated, but you can also choose to have plugin updates
automatically installed instead of waiting for manual
action.

References

^{^}
report
(www.webarxsecurity.com)
^{^}
ThemeGrill Demo Importer
(wordpress.org)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Critical Bug in WordPress Theme Plugin Opens 200,000 Sites to Hackers

References

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