CVE-2023-5991

Hotel Booking Lite <= 4.8.4 - Insufficient Path Validation to Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion and Download

2023-12-01 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 4.8.5
Affected Plugin: MotoPress Hotel Booking
Affected Version: < 4.8.5
CVSS: 9.8Critical
Weakness type: CWE-22 · Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
CVE: CVE-2023-5991

View all MotoPress Hotel Booking vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-5991 is a critical-severity Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in the MotoPress Hotel Booking WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 4.8.5. 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 4.8.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2023, reported by Krzysztof Zając.

Vulnerability Overview

The Hotel Booking Lite plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data due to a missing capability check on the maybeDownload() function and insufficient path validation in all versions up to 4.8.5 (exclusive). This makes it possible for unauthenticated to retrieve and delete arbitrary files which can be leveraged for remote code execution.

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

MotoPress Hotel Booking < 4.8.5 carries this weakness at maybeDownload(), and reaching it takes no account at all. 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 MotoPress Hotel Booking the fix is 4.8.5: builds < 4.8.5 are affected, anything from 4.8.5 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.8.5, 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. None of that substitutes for the fix: MotoPress Hotel Booking 4.8.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-5991 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/8de25651-4119-4806-91e4-4ea213086bfb https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-5991

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in MotoPress Hotel Booking

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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