Youtube Freedown <= 1.0 - Remote Media File Inclusion
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- Youtube Freedown
- Affected Version
<= 1.0- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-98 · Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
- CVE
CVE pending
At a glance
This record tracks a critical-severity Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in the Youtube Freedown WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed May 2014, reported by Prajal Kulkarni.
Vulnerability Overview
The Youtube Freedown plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Media File Inclusion in versions up to, and including, 1.0 via the player.swf file. This allows unauthenticated attackers to include remote files on the server.
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-98: Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion')
Reaching this weakness in Youtube Freedown <= 1.0 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. PHP file inclusion means a path used by include or require is built from request data, so the file that gets executed is under the caller's influence.
Including an attacker-influenced file executes its contents, which is why this class is routinely chained with an upload or log-poisoning step to reach code execution. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Youtube Freedown yet, so installs running <= 1.0 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Youtube Freedown: 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. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Alerts
External References
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