Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 11.7
- Affected Version
<= 11.6- CVSS
- 9.1Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
- CVE
CVE-2020-26511
At a glance
CVE-2020-26511 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the WPO365 WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 11.6. It carries a CVSS score of 9.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 11.7; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2020, reported by Philip Åkesson.
Vulnerability Overview
The WPO365 | LOGIN plugin before v11.7 for WordPress allows use of a symmetric algorithm to decrypt a JWT token. This leads to authentication bypass.
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, integrity.
CWE-287: Improper Authentication
Reaching this weakness in WPO365 <= 11.6 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.
An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For WPO365 the fix is 11.7: builds <= 11.6 are affected, anything from 11.7 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 11.7, 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: WPO365 11.7 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in WPO365 | SEAMLESS WORDPRESS + MICROSOFT INTEGRATION (WPO365 | LOGIN)
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C