Chocolate WP – Responsive Photography Theme (All Versions) - Remote File Inclusion

2013-01-24 00:00
Eugene Dokukin

Strategic Overview

Status
Unpatched
Affected Theme
Chocolate WP – Responsive Photography Theme | Photography
Affected Version
*
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
View all Chocolate WP – Responsive Photography Theme | Photography vulnerabilities

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 Chocolate WP WordPress theme, affecting versions *. 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 January 2013, reported by Eugene Dokukin.

Vulnerability Overview

The Chocolate WP – Responsive Photography Theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote File Inclusion in all versions due to inclusion of a vulnerable version of TimThumb. This allows unauthenticated attackers to include remote files on the server, resulting in code execution.

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 Chocolate WP * 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 theme is recorded for Chocolate WP yet, so installs running * 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 Chocolate WP: 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

https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/f0e77557-f377-4752-bc5b-ec00f2520150

Related records

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