CVE-2019-10270

Ultimate Member <= 2.0.39 - Privilege Escalation

2019-06-15 00:00
Clément CRUCHET

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.0.40
Affected Plugin
Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin
Affected Version
<= 2.0.39
CVSS
8.8High
Weakness type
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
CVE
CVE-2019-10270
View all Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2019-10270 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the Ultimate Member WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.0.39. 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 2.0.40; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2019, reported by Clément CRUCHET.

Vulnerability Overview

An arbitrary password reset issue was discovered in the Ultimate Member plugin 2.0.39 for WordPress. It is possible (due to lack of verification and correlation between the reset password key sent by mail and the user_id parameter) to reset the password of another user. One only needs to know the user_id, which is publicly available. One just has to intercept the password modification request and modify user_id. It is possible to modify the passwords for any users or admin WordPress Ultimate Members. This could lead to account compromise and privilege escalation.

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-269: Improper Privilege Management

Reaching this weakness in Ultimate Member <= 2.0.39 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper privilege management means the code lets an account end up with capabilities its role should not have.

It converts a low-privileged account into an administrative one, which makes every other restriction on the site irrelevant. For Ultimate Member the fix is 2.0.40: builds <= 2.0.39 are affected, anything from 2.0.40 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.0.40, 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: Ultimate Member 2.0.40 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-10270https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/e556d8c9-3ca5-4bec-a840-7a6d67532e59https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-10270

Related records

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