CVE-2009-2334

WordPress Core <= 2.8 - Sensitive Information Disclosure

2009-07-09 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.8.1
Affected Core: WordPress 2.8
Affected Version: <= 2.8
CVSS: 6.1Medium
Weakness type: CWE-200 · Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
CVE: CVE-2009-2334

At a glance

CVE-2009-2334 is a medium-severity Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor vulnerability in the WordPress 2.8 WordPress release line, affecting <= 2.8. It carries a CVSS score of 6.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.8.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2009, reported by Core Security Technologies.

Vulnerability Overview

wp-admin/admin.php in WordPress and WordPress MU before 2.8.1 does not require administrative authentication to access the configuration of a plugin, which allows remote attackers to specify a configuration file in the page parameter to obtain sensitive information or modify this file, as demonstrated by the (1) collapsing-archives/options.txt, (2) akismet/readme.txt, (3) related-ways-to-take-action/options.php, (4) wp-security-scan/securityscan.php, and (5) wp-ids/ids-admin.php files. NOTE: this can be leveraged for cross-site scripting (XSS) and denial of service.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site.

CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Reaching this weakness in WordPress 2.8 <= 2.8 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Sensitive information exposure means data the application intended to keep internal is returned to a caller who should not be able to see it.

The disclosed data — credentials, tokens, customer records or internal paths — is usually worth more as material for a follow-up attack than as an end in itself. For WordPress 2.8 the fix is 2.8.1: builds <= 2.8 are affected, anything from 2.8.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.8.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The fix is the thing that ends this: updating to 2.8.1 is the step that ends it.

Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-2334 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/50f58944-1a12-4bac-9f90-8b0e1d109d11 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-2334

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WordPress 2.8

CVSS Vector

6.1

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionRequired
ScopeChanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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