CVE-2016-10938

copy-me <= 1.0.0 - Missing Authorization & Cross-Site Request Forgery

2016-12-21 00:00
Mallory Adams

Strategic Overview

Status
Unpatched
Affected Plugin
copy-me
Affected Version
<= 1.0.0
CVSS
5.4Medium
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2016-10938
View all copy-me vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2016-10938 is a medium-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the copy-me WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0.0. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The root cause is a missing authorization check on a reachable function. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed December 2016, reported by Mallory Adams.

Vulnerability Overview

The copy-me plugin 1.0.0 for WordPress has CSRF for copying non-public posts to a public location. Edit: The affected function is called via an AJAX action, which makes the endpoint accessible to authenticated users so low level users such as subscribers can also copy posts.

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-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Reaching this weakness in copy-me <= 1.0.0 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.

An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for copy-me yet, so installs running <= 1.0.0 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.

Remediation

No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to copy-me: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C