CVE-2022-3477

tagDiv Composer < 3.5 - Unauthorized Account Access and Privilege Escalation

2022-10-24 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 12.1
Affected Theme: Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme
Affected Version: <= 12
CVSS: 9.8Critical
Weakness type: CWE-288 · Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
CVE: CVE-2022-3477

View all Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2022-3477 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in the Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 12. 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 12.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed October 2022, reported by Truoc Phan.

Vulnerability Overview

The tagDiv Composer plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Unauthorized Account Access and Privilege Escalation in versions up to, but not including, 3.5 due to improper implementation of the Facebook login feature. This allows unauthenticated attackers to log in as any user as long as they know the user's email address. This plugin is used in several themes such as Newspaper and Newsmag.

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-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel

Reaching this weakness in Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme <= 12 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authentication bypass through an alternate path means the application has a second route to a protected action that skips the checks the primary route performs.

The protection on the main path becomes irrelevant, because the attacker simply uses the route that never asks. For Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme the fix is 12.1: builds <= 12 are affected, anything from 12.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 12.1, 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: Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme 12.1 closes this, and updating the theme is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-3477 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/b8347b4e-a5ba-49c5-9ae6-690a1a5c9aac https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-3477

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in Newspaper - News & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

CVSS Vector

9.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh

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