BP Profile Search <= 5.9 - Unauthenticated Local File Inclusion to Remote Code Execution via 'bps_directory' Cookie 'ajax_template' Value

The BP Profile Search plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in versions up to, and including, 5.9 via the 'ajax_template' value parsed from the client-controlled 'bps_directory' cookie during BuddyPress AJAX directory requests. The bps_directory_ajax() filter (hooked onto bp_legacy_object_template_path and bp_nouveau_object_template_path) reads the cookie, applies only a referer-derived 'page' comparison in bps_get_directory_data() (where bps_current_page() uses HTTP_REFERER during AJAX and is therefore also attacker-controlled), and then suffixes the attacker-controlled template value with '.php' and passes it to bp_locate_template() with no basename restriction, no whitelist, and no path-traversal check. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to include arbitrary PHP files on the server, which can lead to remote code execution when PHP files can be uploaded or when images such as the default wordpress:php8.

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: BP Profile Search 6.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

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