CVE-2022-0320

Essential Addons for Elementor <= 5.0.4 - Local File Inclusion

2022-01-21 00:00
Wai Yan Myo Thet

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.0.5
Affected Plugin
Essential Addons for Elementor – Popular Elementor Templates & Widgets
Affected Version
1.0.0 – 5.0.4
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
CVE
CVE-2022-0320
View all Essential Addons for Elementor – Popular Elementor Templates & Widgets vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2022-0320 is a critical-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the Essential Addons for Elementor WordPress plugin, affecting versions 1.0.0 – 5.0.4. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 5.0.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2022, reported by Wai Yan Myo Thet.

Vulnerability Overview

The Essential Addons for Elementor WordPress plugin before 5.0.5 does not validate and sanitise some template data before it them in include statements, which could allow unauthenticated attackers to perform Local File Inclusion attack and read arbitrary files on the server, this could also lead to RCE via user uploaded files or other LFI to RCE techniques.

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, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-98: Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')

Reaching this weakness in Essential Addons for Elementor 1.0.0 – 5.0.4 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. PHP file inclusion means a path used by include or require is built from request data, so the file that gets executed is under the caller's influence.

Including an attacker-influenced file executes its contents, which is why this class is routinely chained with an upload or log-poisoning step to reach code execution. For Essential Addons for Elementor the fix is 5.0.5: builds 1.0.0 – 5.0.4 are affected, anything from 5.0.5 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.0.5, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Essential Addons for Elementor: 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: Essential Addons for Elementor 5.0.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Scanner
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-0320https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/014f1aae-10a0-4bc8-b176-dbdad94a6ad8https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-0320

Related records

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