Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.10.4
- Affected Plugin
- WP Rocket
- Affected Version
< 2.10.4- CVSS
- 7.5High
- Weakness type
- CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
- CVE
CVE-2017-11658
At a glance
CVE-2017-11658 is a high-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the WP Rocket WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.10.4. 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 2.10.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2017, reported by Paulos Yibelo.
Vulnerability Overview
In the WP Rocket plugin 2.10.3 for WordPress, the Local File Inclusion mitigation technique is to trim traversal characters (..) -- however, this is insufficient to stop remote attacks and can be bypassed by using 0x00 bytes, as demonstrated by a .%00.../.%00.../ attack.
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 Rocket < 2.10.4 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 Rocket the fix is 2.10.4: builds < 2.10.4 are affected, anything from 2.10.4 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.10.4, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WP Rocket: 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 Rocket 2.10.4 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
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External References
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