Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.8.2
- Affected Plugin
- Secure File Manager
- Affected Version
< 2.8.2- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
- CVE
CVE-2020-35235
At a glance
CVE-2020-35235 is a high-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the Secure File Manager WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.8.2. 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 2.8.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2020, reported by Jerome Bruandet.
Vulnerability Overview
vendor/elfinder/php/connector.minimal.php in the secure-file-manager plugin through 2.5 for WordPress loads elFinder code without proper access control. Thus, any authenticated user can run the elFinder upload command to achieve remote code execution. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer.
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-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
Reaching this weakness in Secure File Manager < 2.8.2 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Code injection means input from a request reaches a language construct that evaluates code, so the attacker's text is executed rather than treated as data.
The injected code runs with the web server's privileges, giving the attacker the same access to the database and filesystem as WordPress itself. For Secure File Manager the fix is 2.8.2: builds < 2.8.2 are affected, anything from 2.8.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.8.2, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Secure File Manager: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. 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. None of that substitutes for the fix: Secure File Manager 2.8.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Alerts
External References
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