tagDiv Composer < 3.5 - Unauthorized Account Access and Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 5.2.2
- Affected Theme
- Newsmag - Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Theme
- Affected Version
<= 5.2.1- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-288 · Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
- CVE
CVE-2022-3477
At a glance
CVE-2022-3477 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in the Newsmag - Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Theme WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 5.2.1. 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 5.2.2; 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 Newsmag - Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Theme <= 5.2.1 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 Newsmag - Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Theme the fix is 5.2.2: builds <= 5.2.1 are affected, anything from 5.2.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 5.2.2, 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: Newsmag - Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Theme 5.2.2 closes this, and updating the theme is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Newsmag - Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Theme
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