28 Jul 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Easy Forms for MailChimp

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence didn’t provide any description of the vulnerability beyond that it was a reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Easy Forms for MailChimp version 6.1.2, but it was easy to spot with just that information. [Read more]

13 Jul 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: XSS Vulnerability in All in One SEO Pack

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

The latest in our ongoing series of putting out the details of details of vulnerabilities discovered by Wordfence is good example of why what Wordfence is doing is hurting the security of WordPress plugins. In this case they saw a report of  a persistent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the plugin All in One SEO Pack and discovered a similar vulnerability, which is something that often happens we security researchers see reports of vulnerabilities in plugins. The difference is that with that report, like other reports by responsible parties, it included the details of the vulnerabilities, so it was easy for Wordfence to see what the issue was in that case. By Wordfence excluding those details it makes it harder to do the same with vulnerabilities that they have discovered, but through our work on this we have already found two additional security vulnerabilities in the Yoast SEO plugin and one in the WP Fastest Cache plugin. [Read more]

11 Jul 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Remote Code Execution (RCE) Vulnerability in WP Maintenance Mode

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in WP Maintenance Mode version 2.0.6 as “allows unsanitized user input to be evaluated as PHP code. In WordPress Multisite, a site administrator could exploit this vulnerability to execute shell commands, access sensitive information, escalate privileges or cause denial of service”. [Read more]

11 Jul 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Missing Authorization Vulnerability in WP Maintenance Mode

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the missing authorization vulnerability in WP Maintenance Mode version 2.0.6 as “This vulnerability allows an attacker with a subscriber level account to modify plugin settings.”. [Read more]

11 Jul 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Information Disclosure Vulnerability in WP Maintenance Mode

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the information disclosure vulnerability in WP Maintenance Mode version 2.0.6 as “allows a remote attacker to download the list of subscribers from WP Maintenance Mode who have asked to be notified when a site returns to full functionality. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker simply needs to have a registered account on the victim site with no special permissions.”. [Read more]

10 Jun 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Authenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) Vulnerability in EWWW Image Optimizer

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the vulnerability in EWWW Image Optimizer version 2.8.3 as a “Remote Command Execution vulnerability which an attacker can exploit on multisite WordPress installations to gain complete control of a WordPress site”. [Read more]

26 May 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Local File Inclusion Vulnerability in WP Fastest Cache

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the vulnerability in WP Fastest Cache version 0.8.5.7 as “The Local File Inclusion vulnerability allows an attacker to execute code on the target web server or on a site visitor’s browser. This enables the attacker to steal or manipulate data, perform a denial of service attack or enable additional attack types such as Cross Site Scripting.” [Read more]

25 May 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Unauthorized Options Update Vulnerability in WP Fastest Cache

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the vulnerability in WP Fastest Cache version 0.8.5.7 as “The Options Update vulnerability allows an attacker to access and make changes to the CDN (Content Delivery Network) options for the website. With this control an attacker can direct all requests for css files, images, videos, etc. to their site, allowing them to serve malicious content to visitors of the vulnerable site.” [Read more]

25 May 2016

Protecting You Against Wordfence’s Bad Practices: Sensitive Data Exposure Vulnerability in Caldera Forms

Wordfence is putting WordPress website at risk by disclosing vulnerabilities in plugins with critical details needed to double check their work missing, in what appears to be an attempt to profit off of these vulnerabilities. We are releasing those details so that others can review the vulnerabilities to try to limit the damage Wordfence’s practice could cause.

Wordfence describes the vulnerability in Caldera Forms version 1.3.5.2 as “This vulnerability allows an attacker to gain access to potentially sensitive data that has been captured by a Caldera Form.” [Read more]