CVE-2023-5414

Icegram Express <= 5.6.23 - Authenticated (Administrator+) Directory Traversal to Arbitrary File Read

2023-10-11 00:00
Marco Wotschka

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.6.24
Affected Plugin
Email Subscribers & Newsletters – Email Marketing, Post Notifications & Newsletter Plugin for WordPress
Affected Version
<= 5.6.23
CVSS
9.1Critical
Weakness type
CWE-22 · Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
CVE
CVE-2023-5414
View all Email Subscribers & Newsletters – Email Marketing, Post Notifications & Newsletter Plugin for WordPress vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-5414 is a critical-severity Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in the Email Subscribers & Newsletters WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.6.23. It carries a CVSS score of 9.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Administrator level or above. The issue is fixed in version 5.6.24; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2023, reported by Marco Wotschka.

Vulnerability Overview

The Icegram Express plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Directory Traversal in versions up to, and including, 5.6.23 via the show_es_logs function. This allows administrator-level attackers to read the contents of arbitrary files on the server, which can contain sensitive information including those belonging to other sites, for example in shared hosting environments.

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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Reaching this weakness in Email Subscribers & Newsletters <= 5.6.23 takes an account at Administrator level or above. Path traversal happens when user-controlled text is used to build a filesystem path without being constrained to an intended directory, so sequences like ../ walk the resolved path somewhere else.

Depending on the operation, it means reading files outside the intended folder — wp-config.php being the usual target — or writing to and deleting paths the web server can touch. For Email Subscribers & Newsletters the fix is 5.6.24: builds <= 5.6.23 are affected, anything from 5.6.24 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.6.24, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Administrator access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Email Subscribers & Newsletters 5.6.24 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-5414https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/417186ba-36ef-4d06-bbcd-e85eb9219689https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-5414

Related records

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