WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities

Controlled Admin Access < 1.5.2 - Improper Access Control & Privilege Escalation

Description

An Improper Access Control vulnerability was discovered in the plugin. Uncontrolled access to the website customization functionality and global CMS settings, like /wp-admin/customization.php and /wp-admin/options.php, can lead to a complete compromise of the target resource.

Even with the maximum restrictions for a temporary administrator account, several attack vectors are possible against the targeted website, the simplest and fastest is raising system privileges to the administrator level (w/o restrictions) and taking full control of the attacked website.

Proof of Concept

Created a temporary admin account via the plugin (/wp-admin/users.php?page=controlled_admin_access), with limited access and open the below URLs which should not be accessible

### -- [ PoC #1 | Improper Access Control | Customize: ]

[!] https://example.com/wp-admin/customize.php


### -- [ PoC #2 | Improper Access Control | All Settings: ]

[!] https://example.com/wp-admin/options.php

Affects Plugins

References

Classification

Type
ACCESS CONTROLS
CWE
CVSS

Miscellaneous

Original Researcher
m0ze
Submitter
m0ze
Submitter website
Submitter twitter
Verified
Yes

Timeline

Publicly Published
2021-03-23 (about 3 years ago)
Added
2021-03-23 (about 3 years ago)
Last Updated
2021-03-30 (about 3 years ago)

Other