Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 3.2.4
- Affected Plugin
- WooCommerce
- Affected Version
< 3.2.4- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
- CVE
CVE-2017-18356
At a glance
CVE-2017-18356 is a high-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the WooCommerce WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 3.2.4. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account. The issue is fixed in version 3.2.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2017.
Vulnerability Overview
In the Automattic WooCommerce plugin before 3.2.4 for WordPress, an attack is possible after gaining access to the target site with a user account that has at least Shop manager privileges. The attacker then constructs a specifically crafted string that will turn into a PHP object injection involving the includes/shortcodes/class-wc-shortcode-products.php WC_Shortcode_Products::get_products() use of cached queries within shortcodes.
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')
WooCommerce < 3.2.4 carries this weakness at get_products(), and reaching it takes any authenticated account. 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 WooCommerce the fix is 3.2.4: builds < 3.2.4 are affected, anything from 3.2.4 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 3.2.4, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WooCommerce: 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: WooCommerce 3.2.4 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in WooCommerce
- 8.8CVE-2021-32790: WooCommerce < 5.5 Blind SQL Injection
CVE-2021-32790 - 8.8WooCommerce <= 4.0.4 Unauthorized Post Meta Creation/Modification
- 8.8WooCommerce <= 3.6.4 CSRF to Stored Cross-Site Scripting
- 7.5CVE-2026-48888: WooCommerce < 11.1.0 Denial of Service
CVE-2026-48888 - 7.5WooCommerce <= 2.3.10 PHP Object Injection
- 7.3CVE-2014-6313: WooCommerce <= 2.2.2 Cross-Site Scripting
CVE-2014-6313 - 7.2WooCommerce <= 6.2.0 Path Traversal via Tax Importer
- 7.2WooCommerce <= 3.6.4 Missing File Type Validation
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