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Tag Archives: Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

19 Dec 2017

Is This What a Hacker Would Be Targeting the Table Maker Plugin For?

Last week we mentioned that we had recently seen what looked to be probing for the usage of the SendinBlue Subscribe Form And WP SMTP and another plugin. That other plugin is Table Maker, which we had been seeing requests for its readme.txt like this: /wp-content/plugins/table-maker/readme.txt. One of the few possible explanations for requests like that is that someone is probing for usage of the plugin to know what websites to exploit through a vulnerability in the plugin.

In SendinBlue we found a SQL injection vulnerability that matches claims of hackers targeting SQL injection vulnerabilities in code whose result is then passed to the unserialize() function. We have yet to see any evidence that the claims are true, but whether they are true or not, it might explain a hacker’s interest (hackers have been known to target vulnerabilities that don’t actually exist). In looking over Table Maker we found several security issues that involve code around a similar issue, but we didn’t find something that would be obvious for a hacker to exploit. If you see some other issues that hackers might be targeting we would love to hear about it. [Read more]

19 Dec 2017

The Results of Our WordPress Plugin Security Checker Lead to More Serious Issues in Plugin

We recently introduced a new tool to check WordPress plugins in the Plugin Directory for possible security issues. As we continue to look to how we can improve that, we are recording any issues identified by it, so that we can see what kinds of things it is identifying and where they might be room to refine the checks.

In looking over one of the plugins that it identified issues in, what we found was that one of the possible issues was not likely to be exploitable, but did point to the possibility that the pluginswas not all that securely written in general and led to us finding a more serious vulnerability in the plugin. That is obviously one data point, but it does indicate that it might be useful for plugins that are identified as having possible issue to have proper security review done. For those using our service they can then vote/suggest to have the plugin receive a review from us and for those that some reason are not interest in the service can always order a review separately. [Read more]

17 Oct 2017

Vulnerability Details: Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Front-End Only Users

One of the misconceptions we see out there when it comes to the security of plugins is people believing that because a plugin is created by a company as opposed to an individual or because there is a paid element to it, it will be more secure. That clearly hasn’t been the case with the company Etoile Web Design, which hasn’t fixed multiple vulnerabilities we have reported to them (some of which we discovered and other publicly disclosed by someone else). So it wasn’t really surprising that during our monitoring of the WordPress Support Forum came across a thread about Daniele Scasciafratte noticing a vulnerability in their Front-End Only Users plugin due to it having been exploited on the plugin’s demo site:

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5 Jul 2017

Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Post Custom Templates Lite

Unlike most companies providing security services related to WordPress we are interested improving the security of the WordPress ecosystem, so that the average website isn’t required to use any security product or service. That isn’t easy since even the people on the WordPress side of things too often don’t seem interested in that. One new way that we are trying to improve security is by catching serious vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins when they are included in a new version of the plugin (if we had more customers we could expand this to less serious vulnerabilities).

Through that we have already found a number of lesser vulnerabilities that came up in the course of looking into potential instances of the more serious vulnerabilities. So far many of those haven’t been fixed, so those using the plugins would want to be using a service or plugin that notifies of vulnerable plugins to aware of the problem. While there a number of those, from our checking the other ones have not included those vulnerabilities or many of the others we have disclosed, so that is where our service provides you something you can’t get elsewhere (those other data source are missing many recently disclosed vulnerabilities disclosed by others as well). [Read more]

16 Jun 2017

False Vulnerability Report: Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability in WP Job Manager

As part of our cataloging the vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins for our service we come across false reports of vulnerabilities from time to time. So that others don’t spend their time looking over these as well, we post our findings on them. The data on these false reports is also included in our service’s data.

Recently several security related changes were made to the plugin WP Job Manager, while reviewing the changes we didn’t see anything that looked like it would relate to something that would be classified as a vulnerability and needed to be detailed and added to our data set. The cause for one of the changes clarifies that there really wasn’t a vulnerability in that case. [Read more]

14 Jun 2017

Vulnerability Details: Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in RSVP

From time to time a vulnerability is fixed in a plugin without the discoverer putting out a report on the vulnerability and we will put out a post detailing the vulnerability so that we can provide our customers with more complete information on the vulnerability.

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30 May 2017

Vulnerability Details: Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Question answer

From time to time vulnerabilities are fixed in plugin without someone putting out a report on the vulnerability and we will put out a post detailing the vulnerability. While putting out the details of the vulnerability increases the chances of it being exploited, it also can help to identify vulnerabilities that haven’t been fully fixed (in some cases not fixed at all) and help to identify additional vulnerabilities in the plugin.

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19 May 2017

Vulnerability Details: Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in WP Booking System

An advisory was released by the JPCERT/CC and IPA that a persistent cross-site scripting vulnerability had been fixed in version 1.4 of the plugin WP Booking System, which was discovered by “Satoshi Takagi of Cryptography Laboratory,Department of Information and Communication Engineering,Tokyo Denki University”. In looking at the changes made in that version we found that this involved form submissions for the plugin.

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7 Feb 2017

Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in XO Security

When it comes to trying to improve the security surrounding WordPress one of the big impediments is the security industry. One of the things we see them doing is providing misleading and sometimes outright false information to the public about security. One outright falsehood that has been widely spread is that there are lots of brute force attacks against WordPress admin passwords, when based on security companies own evidence are not happening at all. What is really happening are dictionary attacks, which involve an attacker try to login using common passwords. That type of attack is easily protected against by using a strong password, something that WordPress does a good job of helping you do. What might explain why security companies are saying something that isn’t true here is so that they can use the false claim to promote their plugins and services, like we have found Wordfence doing. The problem with this is that every plugin on the website introduces the possibility of a vulnerability, including security plugins.

Take the plugin XO Security that we recently ran across, which is promoted as providing “enhanced login security.” It provides a number of features and by default it will log login attempts. That involves storing and outputting user input data, which needs to be properly handled, but in that wasn’t happening, which was allowing for persistent cross-site scripting (XSS). [Read more]

12 Jan 2017

Vulnerability Details: Persistent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Chained Quiz

From time to time vulnerabilities are fixed in plugin without someone putting out a report on the vulnerability and we will put out a post detailing the vulnerability. While putting out the details of the vulnerability increases the chances of it being exploited, it also can help to identify vulnerabilities that haven’t been fully fixed (in some cases not fixed at all) and help to identify additional vulnerabilities in the plugin.

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[Read more]