CVE-2012-5469

Portable phpMyAdmin <= 1.3.0 - Authentication Bypass

2014-08-01 00:00
Mark Stanislav

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 1.3.1
Affected Plugin
Portable phpMyAdmin
Affected Version
<= 1.3.0
CVSS
7.3High
Weakness type
CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
CVE
CVE-2012-5469
View all Portable phpMyAdmin vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2012-5469 is a high-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the Portable phpMyAdmin WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.3.0. It carries a CVSS score of 7.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.3.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2014, reported by Mark Stanislav.

Vulnerability Overview

The Portable phpMyAdmin plugin before 1.3.0 for WordPress allows remote attackers to bypass authentication and obtain phpMyAdmin console access via a direct request to wp-content/plugins/portable-phpmyadmin/wp-pma-mod.

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-287: Improper Authentication

Reaching this weakness in Portable phpMyAdmin <= 1.3.0 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.

An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For Portable phpMyAdmin the fix is 1.3.1: builds <= 1.3.0 are affected, anything from 1.3.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.3.1, 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: Portable phpMyAdmin 1.3.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-5469https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/e796b203-31b4-47c6-9018-190389ce4df7https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-5469

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C