CVE-2017-18584

Post Pay Counter < 2.731 - Arbitrary Settings Change

2017-09-16 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.731
Affected Plugin: Post Pay Counter
Affected Version: < 2.731
CVSS: 7.5High
Weakness type: CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
CVE: CVE-2017-18584

View all Post Pay Counter vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2017-18584 is a high-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the Post Pay Counter WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.731. It carries a CVSS score of 7.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high integrity impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.731; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2017.

Vulnerability Overview

The Post Pay Counter plugin before 2.731 for WordPress has no permissions check for an update-settings action.

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 integrity.

CWE-287: Improper Authentication

Reaching this weakness in Post Pay Counter < 2.731 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 Post Pay Counter the fix is 2.731: builds < 2.731 are affected, anything from 2.731 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.731, 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: Post Pay Counter 2.731 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-18584 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/951b2a15-04c1-4c5b-9cef-146628079c36 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-18584

Related records

CVSS Vector

7.5

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityNone

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