CVE-2014-4577

WP AmASIN – The Amazon Affiliate Shop <= 0.9.6 - Local File Inclusion

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 0.9.7
Affected Version
<= 0.9.6
CVSS
7.5High
Weakness type
CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
CVE
CVE-2014-4577
View all WP AmASIN – The Amazon Affiliate Shop vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2014-4577 is a high-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the WP AmASIN WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 0.9.6. It carries a CVSS score of 7.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 0.9.7; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2014, reported by Anant Shrivastava (anantshri).

Vulnerability Overview

Absolute path traversal vulnerability in reviews.php in the WP AmASIN - The Amazon Affiliate Shop plugin 0.9.6 and earlier for WordPress allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via a full pathname in the url 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.

CWE-98: Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')

Reaching this weakness in WP AmASIN <= 0.9.6 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 WP AmASIN the fix is 0.9.7: builds <= 0.9.6 are affected, anything from 0.9.7 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 0.9.7, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP AmASIN: 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: WP AmASIN 0.9.7 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

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External References

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