WordPress has forced the update of the UpdraftPlus plugin around three million sites to address a high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-0633 (CVSS v3.1 score of 8.5) that can allow website subscribers to download the latest database backups, which could potentially contain sensitive data.
“The UpdraftPlus WordPress plugin Free before 1.22.3 and Premium before 2.22.3 do not properly validate a user has the required privileges to access a backup’s nonce identifier, which may allow any users with an account on the site (such as subscriber) to download the most recent site & database backup.” reads the advisory for this issue.
The flaw was discovered Marc Montpas during an internal audit of the plugin.
“The plugin uses custom “nonces” and timestamps to securely identify backups. Given the knowledge of said nonce and timestamp can give someone access to quite a few of the plugin’s features, making sure this info is only accessible to those who legitimately need it is crucial.” reported the analysis. “Unfortunately, as we’ll demonstrate, it wasn’t the case.”
The issue impacts versions 1.16.7 to 1.22.2 of the plugin, the development team addressed it with the release of 1.22.3 or 2.22.3 for the (paid) Premium version.
Source: https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/128170/hacking/updraftplus-forced-update.html