CVE-2015-5471

Swim Team < 1.45.1085 - Directory Traversal

2015-07-08 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 1.45.1085
Affected Plugin: Swim Team
Affected Version: <= 1.44.1077
CVSS: 5.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-22 · Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
CVE: CVE-2015-5471

At a glance

CVE-2015-5471 is a medium-severity Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in the Swim Team WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.44.1077. It carries a CVSS score of 5.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.45.1085; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2015, reported by Larry W. Cashdollar.

Vulnerability Overview

Absolute path traversal vulnerability in include/user/download.php in the Swim Team plugin 1.44.10777 for WordPress allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via a full pathname in the file 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.

CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Reaching this weakness in Swim Team <= 1.44.1077 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Path traversal happens when user-controlled text is used to build a filesystem path without being constrained to an intended directory, so sequences like ../ walk the resolved path somewhere else.

Depending on the operation, it means reading files outside the intended folder — wp-config.php being the usual target — or writing to and deleting paths the web server can touch. For Swim Team the fix is 1.45.1085: builds <= 1.44.1077 are affected, anything from 1.45.1085 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 1.45.1085, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Swim Team: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Swim Team 1.45.1085 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2015-5471 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/98d008a4-5dbf-410f-8753-d5aeb28b4447 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-5471

CVSS Vector

5.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityLow
IntegrityNone
AvailabilityNone

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