CVE-2016-10968

Community by PeepSo – Social Network, Membership, Registration, User Profiles < 1.6.1 - Privilege Escalation

2016-06-21 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 1.6.1
Affected Plugin: Community by PeepSo – Download from PeepSo.com
Affected Version: <= 1.6.0
CVSS: 8.8High
Weakness type: CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
CVE: CVE-2016-10968

View all Community by PeepSo – Download from PeepSo.com vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2016-10968 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the Community by PeepSo WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.6.0. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). The issue is fixed in version 1.6.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2016, reported by James Golovich.

Vulnerability Overview

The peepso-core plugin before 1.6.1 for WordPress has PeepSoProfilePreferencesAjax->save() privilege escalation.

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 interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management

Community by PeepSo <= 1.6.0 carries this weakness at save(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper privilege management means the code lets an account end up with capabilities its role should not have.

It converts a low-privileged account into an administrative one, which makes every other restriction on the site irrelevant. For Community by PeepSo the fix is 1.6.1: builds <= 1.6.0 are affected, anything from 1.6.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.6.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Community by PeepSo 1.6.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-10968 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/01f038d7-2efd-41b2-8f4c-77bab80d8e91 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-10968

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Community by PeepSo – Download from PeepSo.com

CVSS Vector

8.8

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

Base

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

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