Revive Old Posts – Social Media Auto Post and Scheduling Plugin < 8.0.0 - Authorization Bypass

2015-02-02 00:00
James Hooker

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 8.0.0
Affected Version
< 8.0.0
CVSS
8.6High
Weakness type
CWE-285 · Improper Authorization
CVE
CVE pending
View all Revive Social – Social Media Auto Post and Scheduling Automation Plugin vulnerabilities

At a glance

This record tracks a high-severity Improper Authorization vulnerability in the Revive Social WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 8.0.0. It carries a CVSS score of 8.6 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 8.0.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2015, reported by James Hooker.

Vulnerability Overview

The Revive Old Posts – Social Media Auto Post and Scheduling Plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authorization Bypass due to a missing capability check on the update_response AJAX action in versions before 8.0.0. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to create a new account with administrative-level privileges. This issue was not fully patched until the core.php file was removed in version 8.0.0 since the capability check implemented (is_admin) was not sufficient.

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 availability.

CWE-285: Improper Authorization

Reaching this weakness in Revive Social < 8.0.0 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authorization means a permission check exists but does not cover the case being exercised, so a caller who is allowed to do one thing is allowed to do a neighbouring thing as well.

A lower-privileged account performs an action reserved for a higher one, which on a multi-author or membership site means an ordinary user reaching administrative behaviour. For Revive Social the fix is 8.0.0: builds < 8.0.0 are affected, anything from 8.0.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 8.0.0, 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: Revive Social 8.0.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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