CVE-2016-10956

Mail Masta <= 1.0 - Local File Inclusion

2016-08-23 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Unpatched
Affected Plugin: Mail Masta
Affected Version: <= 1.0
CVSS: 9.8Critical
Weakness type: CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
CVE: CVE-2016-10956

At a glance

CVE-2016-10956 is a critical-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the Mail Masta WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed August 2016, reported by Guillermo Garcia Marcos.

Vulnerability Overview

The mail-masta plugin 1.0 for WordPress has local file inclusion in count_of_send.php and csvexport.php.

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 Mail Masta <= 1.0 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. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Mail Masta yet, so installs running <= 1.0 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 Mail Masta: 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. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.

Firewall
Scanner
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-10956 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/9d4bbf48-6525-4569-98a6-412f2bfe7628 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-10956

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Mail Masta

CVSS Vector

9.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh

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