Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 4.9.17.1
- Affected Plugin
- UserPro - Community and User Profile WordPress Plugin
- Affected Version
< 4.9.17.1- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
- CVE
CVE-2017-16562
At a glance
CVE-2017-16562 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the UserPro - Community and User Profile WordPress Plugin WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 4.9.17.1. 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 4.9.17.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2017, reported by Iain Hadgraft.
Vulnerability Overview
The UserPro plugin before 4.9.17.1 for WordPress, when used on a site with the "admin" username, allows remote attackers to bypass authentication and obtain administrative access via a "true" value for the up_auto_log parameter in the QUERY_STRING to the default URI.
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-287: Improper Authentication
UserPro - Community and User Profile WordPress Plugin < 4.9.17.1 carries this weakness at admin, and reaching it 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 UserPro - Community and User Profile WordPress Plugin the fix is 4.9.17.1: builds < 4.9.17.1 are affected, anything from 4.9.17.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 4.9.17.1, 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: UserPro - Community and User Profile WordPress Plugin 4.9.17.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in UserPro - Community and User Profile WordPress Plugin
- 10.0UserPro <= 4.9.20 Privilege Escalation
- 9.8CVE-2024-56214: Userpro <= 5.1.9 Local File Inclusion
CVE-2024-56214 - 9.8CVE-2024-35700: UserPro Account Takeover to Privilege Escalation
CVE-2024-35700 - 9.8CVE-2023-2437: UserPro <= 5.1.1 Authentication Bypass to Administrator
CVE-2023-2437 - 9.8CVE-2023-2449: UserPro <= 5.1.1 Insecure Password Reset Mechanism
CVE-2023-2449 - 9.8UserPro <= 4.9.27 Privilege Escalation
- 8.8CVE-2023-2440: UserPro <= 5.1.1 CSRF to Privilege Escalation
CVE-2023-2440 - 8.8CVE-2023-6009: UserPro <= 5.1.4 Privilege Escalation
CVE-2023-6009
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C