WP-BusinessDirectory <= 4.0.1 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion via Path Traversal via '_filename' Parameter

The WP-BusinessDirectory plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion in versions up to and including 4.0.1. This is due to insufficient path validation in the remove() method of the JBusinessDirectoryControllerUpload class. The task=upload.remove endpoint is accessible without authentication via the plugin's frontend routing system. The _filename parameter is accepted with RAW filter (no sanitization), and the helper function makePathFile() only normalizes directory separator characters without stripping path traversal sequences (../). When combined with the _path_type=2 parameter, which sets the base directory to the plugin's site folder, an attacker can supply a _filename value containing ../ sequences to traverse outside the plugin directory and call PHP's unlink() on arbitrary files — including wp-config.php, wp-config-backup.php, or other critical server files accessible to the web server process. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to delete arbitrary files on the server.

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: 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-BusinessDirectory 4.0.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

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