CVE-2015-4338

Backup, Restore and Migrate WordPress Sites With the XCloner Plugin <= 3.1.2 - Remote Code Execution

2015-05-10 00:00
Larry W. Cashdollar

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.1.3
Affected Plugin
Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner
Affected Version
< 3.1.3
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
CVE
CVE-2015-4338
View all Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2015-4338 is a critical-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 3.1.3. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.1.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2015, reported by Larry W. Cashdollar.

Vulnerability Overview

Static code injection vulnerability in the XCloner plugin 3.1.2 for WordPress allows remote authenticated users to inject arbitrary PHP code into the language files via a Translation LM_FRONT_* field for a language, as demonstrated by language/italian.php.

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, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Reaching this weakness in Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner < 3.1.3 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Code injection means input from a request reaches a language construct that evaluates code, so the attacker's text is executed rather than treated as data.

The injected code runs with the web server's privileges, giving the attacker the same access to the database and filesystem as WordPress itself. For Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner the fix is 3.1.3: builds < 3.1.3 are affected, anything from 3.1.3 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.1.3, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner: 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: Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner 3.1.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Scanner
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2015-4338https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/8d19e18d-6f2e-48e7-b8da-1d399dc4d65chttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-4338

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C