Closures of Very Popular WordPress Plugins, Week of April 5
While we already are far ahead of other companies in keeping up with vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins (amazingly that isn’t an exaggeration), in looking in to how we could get even better we noticed that in a recent instance were a vulnerability was exploited in a plugin, we probably could have warned our customers about the vulnerability even sooner if we had looked at the plugin when it was first closed on the Plugin Directory instead of when the vulnerability was fixed (though as far as we are aware the exploitation started after we had warned our customers of the fix). So we are now monitoring to see if any of the 1,000 most popular plugins are closed on the Plugin Directory and then seeing if it looks like that was due to a vulnerability.
This week four of those plugins were closed and two of them have been reopened.
Social Login, Social Sharing by miniOrange (WordPress Social Login (Facebook, Google, Twitter))
Social Login, Social Sharing by miniOrange (WordPress Social Login (Facebook, Google, Twitter)), which has 30,000+ installs, was closed on Saturday. Only the vague explanation that the “plugin is temporarily unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances” has been given for the closure. In quick check over the plugin we found that it looked rather insecure and we have disclosed on example of a vulnerability that existed as of it being closed. It was reopened on Wednesday after a number of security changes were made.
404page
404page, which has 90,000+ installs, was closed on Saturday. No reason had been given for the closure at the time, but in a quick check over the plugin we found a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability. Based on the changes subsequently made to the plugin and the developer’s comments, it appears that was the cause of the closure. The plugin was reopened on Monday.
Related Posts
Related Posts, which has 60,000+ installs, was closed on Saturday. No reason has been given for the closure. In a quick check over the plugin found it contains a settings change vulnerability that permits persistent cross-site scripting (XSS), which is something hackers would be likely to exploit.
Toolset Types
Toolset Types, which as 200,000+ installs was closed yesterday. No reason has been given for the closure. In a pinned topic from over four months ago, “Types plugin will go away at the end of 2018“, it was written:
Like we announced several times in the past, Types plugin will stop appearing in the WPORG repo. We kept it on WPORG during 2018 to give security and stability updates, but this time is reaching its end.
In a quick check over the plugin we didn’t see any obvious security issues.