CVE-2021-36888

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.6.1 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Options Update

2021-12-15 14:44
John Castro

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 9.6.2
Affected Plugin
Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier )
Affected Version
<= 9.6.1
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-284 · Improper Access Control
CVE
CVE-2021-36888
View all Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier ) vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-36888 is a critical-severity Improper Access Control vulnerability in the Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier ) WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 9.6.1. 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 9.6.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2021, reported by John Castro.

Vulnerability Overview

Unauthenticated Arbitrary Options Update vulnerability leading to full website compromise discovered in Image Hover Effects Ultimate (versions <= 9.6.1) WordPress plugin.

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-284: Improper Access Control

Reaching this weakness in Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier ) <= 9.6.1 takes no account at all. Improper access control means the code decides what a caller may do using something other than their actual permissions, so the decision can be wrong without any check appearing to be missing.

Whoever can shape the request decides the answer, so the protected action runs for callers the code never meant to allow. For Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier ) the fix is 9.6.2: builds <= 9.6.1 are affected, anything from 9.6.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 9.6.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier ) 9.6.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-36888https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/8b4fcc97-1b6b-4411-8b55-0ef7a2c8d44ehttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-36888

Related records

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