RokNewsPager <= 1.17 - Denial of Service
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.18
- Affected Plugin
- RokNewsPager
- Affected Version
<= 1.17- CVSS
- 9.1Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
- CVE
CVE pending
At a glance
This record tracks a critical-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the RokNewsPager WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.17. It carries a CVSS score of 9.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.18; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2013, reported by Eugene Dokukin.
Vulnerability Overview
The WordPress RokNewsPager plugin is vulnerable to Denial of Service via the 'src' parameter in the 'thumb.php' file in versions up to, and including, 1.17. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to slow the response time of the vulnerable service to an unusable speed and/or completely deny it.
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 integrity, availability.
CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
RokNewsPager <= 1.17 carries this weakness at src, and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Uncontrolled resource consumption means a request can make the server do an amount of work it never bounds, because the size or repetition of the job is taken from the request rather than capped by the code.
A single caller can hold PHP workers, database connections or disk open long enough to slow the site for everyone, without needing any account or any other flaw. For RokNewsPager the fix is 1.18: builds <= 1.17 are affected, anything from 1.18 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.18, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to RokNewsPager: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: RokNewsPager 1.18 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
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