CVE-2022-0164

Coming soon and Maintenance mode <= 3.6.6 - Missing Authorization to Arbitrary Email Send

2022-01-24 00:00
Krzysztof Zając

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.6.7
Affected Version
<= 3.6.6
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-863 · Incorrect Authorization
CVE
CVE-2022-0164
View all Coming soon and Maintenance mode vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2022-0164 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization vulnerability in the Coming soon and Maintenance mode WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.6.6. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The root cause is a missing authorization check on a reachable function. The issue is fixed in version 3.6.7; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2022, reported by Krzysztof Zając.

Vulnerability Overview

The Coming soon and Maintenance mode WordPress plugin before 3.6.8 does not have authorisation and CSRF checks in its coming_soon_send_mail AJAX action, allowing any authenticated users, with a role as low as subscriber to send arbitrary emails to all subscribed users.

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 interaction from a victim user.

CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization

Reaching this weakness in Coming soon and Maintenance mode <= 3.6.6 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Incorrect authorization means a permission check exists but evaluates the wrong thing, so it passes for callers it was meant to stop.

The action runs for users the code intended to exclude, with the same effect as having no check at all. For Coming soon and Maintenance mode the fix is 3.6.7: builds <= 3.6.6 are affected, anything from 3.6.7 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.6.7, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Coming soon and Maintenance mode 3.6.7 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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