No Follow All External Links 2.1.0 - 2.3.0 - Backdoor
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- No Follow All External Links
- Affected Version
2.1.0 – 2.3.0- CVSS
- 5.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-912 · Hidden Functionality
- CVE
CVE pending
At a glance
This record tracks a medium-severity Hidden Functionality vulnerability in the No Follow All External Links WordPress plugin, affecting versions 2.1.0 – 2.3.0. It carries a CVSS score of 5.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed December 2017, reported by Wordfence.
Vulnerability Overview
The No Follow All External Links plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to a backdoor in versions 2.1.0 - 2.3.0. This is due to the criminal actor purchasing the plugin and adding the backdoor themselves. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers to inject content into the vulnerable plugin, commonly used in the past for SEO Spam.
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.
CWE-912: Hidden Functionality
The product contains functionality that is not documented, not part of the specification, and not accessible through an interface or command sequence that is obvious to the product's users or administrators.
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?
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.
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- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C