Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 0.8
- Affected Plugin
- Theme Tuner
- Affected Version
< 0.8- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
- CVE
CVE-2012-0934
At a glance
CVE-2012-0934 is a critical-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the Theme Tuner WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 0.8. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 0.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2012, reported by Ben Schmidt.
Vulnerability Overview
PHP remote file inclusion vulnerability in ajax/savetag.php in the Theme Tuner plugin for WordPress before 0.8 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary PHP code via a URL in the tt-abspath parameter.
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 confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-98: Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
Reaching this weakness in Theme Tuner < 0.8 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. PHP file inclusion means a path used by include or require is built from request data, so the file that gets executed is under the caller's influence.
Including an attacker-influenced file executes its contents, which is why this class is routinely chained with an upload or log-poisoning step to reach code execution. For Theme Tuner the fix is 0.8: builds < 0.8 are affected, anything from 0.8 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 0.8, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Theme Tuner: 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: Theme Tuner 0.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Alerts
External References
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