Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.69.0
- Affected Plugin
- WP-EMail
- Affected Version
< 2.69.0- CVSS
- 6.5Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-639 · Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
- CVE
CVE-2022-1614
At a glance
CVE-2022-1614 is a medium-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in the WP-EMail WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.69.0. It carries a CVSS score of 6.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.69.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2022, reported by Daniel Ruf.
Vulnerability Overview
The WP-EMail WordPress plugin before 2.69.0 prioritizes getting a visitor's IP from certain HTTP headers over PHP's REMOTE_ADDR, which makes it possible to bypass IP-based anti-spamming restrictions.
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.
CWE-639: Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
Reaching this weakness in WP-EMail < 2.69.0 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authorization bypass through a user-controlled key, often called insecure direct object reference, means the application looks up a record by an identifier from the request without checking that the caller owns it.
Changing a number in the request is enough to read or modify other users' records, which on commerce and membership sites means customer data. For WP-EMail the fix is 2.69.0: builds < 2.69.0 are affected, anything from 2.69.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.69.0, 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: WP-EMail 2.69.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
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