LWS Affiliation <= 2.2.6 - Unauthenticated Remote/Local File Inclusion
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.3
- Affected Plugin
- LWS Affiliation
- Affected Version
<= 2.2.6- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
- CVE
CVE-2023-32297
At a glance
CVE-2023-32297 is a critical-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the LWS Affiliation WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.2.6. 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 2.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2023, reported by Marco Wotschka.
Vulnerability Overview
The LWS Affiliation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote/Local File Inclusion in versions up to, and including, 2.2.6 via the 'path' parameter. This allows unauthenticated attackers to include and execute arbitrary remote code on the server, provided that allow_url_include is enabled. Local File Inclusion is also possible, albeit less useful because it requires that the attacker be able to upload a malicious php file via FTP or some other means into a directory readable by the web server.
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')
LWS Affiliation <= 2.2.6 carries this weakness at path, and reaching it takes no account at all. 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 LWS Affiliation the fix is 2.3: builds <= 2.2.6 are affected, anything from 2.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.3, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: 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: LWS Affiliation 2.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Login Security
External References
Related records
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