Wordfence Threat Intelligence team began the responsible disclosure process for two vulnerabilities in Shield Security, a security plugin with over 50,000 installations. One of these vulnerabilities allowed unauthenticated attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into an administrator dashboard in some configurations, while another allowed authenticated attackers to spoof log entries into the same dashboard, which could also be used to exploit the first vulnerability in configurations where the unauthenticated technique was not viable.

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 17.0.17 via the ‘User-Agent’ header. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

The Shield Security plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Missing Authorization on the ‘theme-plugin-file’ AJAX action in versions up to, and including, 17.0.17. This allows authenticated attackers to add arbitrary audit log entries indicating that a theme or plugin has been edited, and is also a vector for Cross-Site Scripting via CVE-2023-0992.

The Shield Security plugin includes a number of features, including an audit log that records certain types of suspicious activity, such as plugin and theme installation, modification, post deletion, and other types of activity that might impact the site. While most of these events require authentication or higher privileges in order to trigger, we found that certain events could be triggered by unauthenticated users. In particular, failed attempts to authenticate using application passwords, new user registrations, and spam activity are among the actions recorded for unauthenticated users.

The audit log records metadata about the client that performed the logged activity, including the client’s User-Agent, which can be accessed by clicking the “Meta” tag icon on an audit log entry. Unfortunately, the metadata was not escaped when it was output. While most of the metadata collected about a request has a very strict format and can only be spoofed to a limited extent, User-Agent strings are alphanumeric, and we were able to inject a script in an iframe in the User-Agent header that fired when an administrator viewed an event entry.

Source and more details: https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/04/multiple-vulnerabilities-patched-in-shield-security

On April 5, 2023, our Wordfence Threat Intelligence team identified and began the responsible disclosure process for a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Blubrry’s PowerPress plugin, which is actively installed on more than 50,000 WordPress websites. The vulnerability enables threat actors with contributor-level permissions or higher to inject malicious web scripts into pages using the plugin’s shortcode.

We contacted Blubrry on April 6, 2023, and promptly received a response. After providing full disclosure details, the developer released a patch on April 10, 2023. We commend the PowerPress development team for their swift response and timely patch release.

We urge users to update their sites with the latest patched version of PowerPress, version 10.0.4 at the time of this writing, as soon as possible.

Technical Analysis

PowerPress is a plugin that allows WordPress users to publish and manage podcasts. It provides a shortcode ([powerpress]) that allows users to display the PowerPress player on a WordPress page. However, insecure implementation of the plugin’s shortcode functionality allows for the injection of arbitrary web scripts into these pages. A closer examination of the code reveals that the ‘powerpress_shortcode_handler’ function did not adequately sanitize user-supplied input and a number of functions (for various podcast player options) that utilize the shortcode attributes did not adequately escape output.

This makes it possible for threat actors to carry out stored XSS attacks. Once a script is injected, it will execute each time a user accesses the affected page. Threat actors could potentially steal sensitive information, manipulate site content, or redirect users to malicious websites.

Source and more details: https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/04/blubrry-addresses-authenticated-stored-xss-vulnerability-in-powerpress-wordpress-plugin

On March 14, 2023, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated the responsible disclosure process for 2 nearly identical Cross-Site Scripting vulnerabilities in the Weaver Xtreme theme and the Weaver Show Posts plugin, which each have over 10,000 installations. The plugin developer responded the same day and we provided full disclosure.

A patched version of the Weaver Show Posts plugin, 1.7, was released on April 1, 2023, while the patched version 6.2 of the Weaver Xtreme theme became available on April 5, 2023.

The Weaver Xtreme theme for WordPress is vulnerable to stored Cross-Site Scripting due to insufficient escaping of the profile display name in versions up to, and including, 5.0.7. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with contributor-level and above permissions to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

The Weaver Show Posts plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to stored Cross-Site Scripting due to insufficient escaping of the profile display name in versions up to, and including, 1.6. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with contributor-level and above permissions to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

Source and more details: https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/04/hiding-in-plain-sight-cross-site-scripting-vulnerabilities-patched-in-weaver-products

The Wordfence team responsibly disclosed an unauthenticated stored Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability in Limit Login Attempts, a WordPress plugin installed on over 600,000 sites that provides site owners with the ability to block IP addresses that have made repeated failed login attempts.

The plugin is vulnerable in versions up to, and including, 1.7.1. A patch addressing this vulnerability was released on April 4, 2023 as version 1.7.2. We recommend all site owners update to version 1.7.2 as soon as possible.

All WordFence users, including those still using the free version of the plugin, are protected by the Wordfence firewall against any exploits targeting this vulnerability.

Source and more details: https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/04/update-now-severe-vulnerability-impacting-600000-sites-patched-in-limit-login-attempts

On April 5, 2023 the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated the responsible disclosure process for a vulnerability we discovered in WP Data Access, a WordPress plugin that is installed on over 10,000 sites. This flaw makes it possible for an authenticated attacker to grant themselves administrative privileges via a profile update, if the targeted site has the ‘Role Management’ setting enabled.

Source and more details: https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/04/privilege-escalation-vulnerability-patched-promptly-in-wp-data-access-wordpress-plugin