CVE-2023-47682

WP User Frontend <= 3.6.5 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation

2023-11-09 00:00
Rafie Muhammad

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.6.6
Affected Plugin
User Frontend – Membership, User Registration, User Profile, User Directory & Content Restriction with Frontend Post Submission
Affected Version
<= 3.6.5
CVSS
8.8High
Weakness type
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
CVE
CVE-2023-47682
View all User Frontend – Membership, User Registration, User Profile, User Directory & Content Restriction with Frontend Post Submission vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2023-47682 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the User Frontend WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.6.5. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Author level or above. The issue is fixed in version 3.6.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2023, reported by Rafie Muhammad.

Vulnerability Overview

The WP User Frontend – Registration, User Profile, Membership, Content Restriction, User Directory, and Frontend Post Submission Plugin plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 3.6.5. This is due to the plugin not providing sufficient controls on the ability to supply a role on the registration form shortcode rendered via the registration_form function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to add a registration form to a page with the role set to administrator and then subsequently use the form to register as an administrator.

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 interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management

Reaching this weakness in User Frontend <= 3.6.5 takes an account at Author level or above. Improper privilege management means the code lets an account end up with capabilities its role should not have.

It converts a low-privileged account into an administrative one, which makes every other restriction on the site irrelevant. For User Frontend the fix is 3.6.6: builds <= 3.6.5 are affected, anything from 3.6.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.6.6, 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: User Frontend 3.6.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-47682https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/31de3c9b-068d-47d8-9811-feae07f2e9d0https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-47682

Related records

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