Description
A critical vulnerability has been identified in the Social Login feature of the Comments โ wpDiscuz plugin for WordPress. This vulnerability, affecting versions up to and including 7.6.24, results from inadequate user verification during the social login process. This flaw permits potential attackers to bypass authentication and log in as any user, including administrators, under certain conditions.
Affected Product(s)
- Comments โ wpDiscuz plugin for WordPress, Versions up to 7.6.24
Technical Details
The Comments โ wpDiscuz plugin for WordPress is widely used to enhance the commenting system on WordPress sites, offering features like real-time commenting and social login. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-9488, carries a critical severity rating with a CVSS v3 score of 9.8 due to its potential impact on site security. The vulnerability resides in the SocialLogin.php script, where insufficient verification occurs on the user identities returned by social login tokens.
When a user tries to log in using a social media account, the plugin is supposed to verify the authenticity of the login token. However, the inadequate checks allow an attacker with access to a user’s email address to authenticate as that user. This is particularly dangerous if the attacker targets administrative accounts, thereby gaining control over the entire site.
As seen in the WordPress Trac repository, changes between revisions indicate that previous versions did not thoroughly validate the integration with external social login services. These services may include platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Google, which issue tokens to confirm user identities upon login attempts. The flaw permits a bypass where the attacker could potentially manipulate token values or leverage other methods to convince the system that they have a valid, authenticated token. Historical issues with similar plugins and software have underscored the necessity of using robust token validation mechanisms to prevent the exploitation of authentication functions.
User tokens should be exchanged for session credentials only after rigorous validation against trusted endpoints of social login providers. Failure to implement these checks leaves a glaring vulnerability that threat actors can exploit remotely, which is notably severe given that WordPress powers a significant portion of the web.
Threat actors leveraging such vulnerabilities typically rely on a combination of phishing techniques to gain user emails and automatic scripts to forge or imitate social login tokens. The compromised login attempts don’t require prior access to the WordPress backend or change the inherent source code, making detection of unauthorized access actions challenging. After initially exploiting the vulnerability, the threat actors can create new administrator-level accounts or plant backdoors into the WordPress instance for persistent access.
The vulnerability affects all wpDiscuz versions before 7.6.25. A range of these versions can be matched to different versions of WordPress due to backward compatibility policies that WordPress implements. Hence, this broad range increases the likelihood of many websites being vulnerable if they fail to frequently update their plugins. Analyzing the code differences in the WordPress Trac change logs reveals enhancements made to the social login verification process by enforcing additional checkpoints and token scrutiny.
The specific revisions within the plugin indicate meticulous effort by the developers to plug the gap in authentication verification that permitted the inappropriate acceptance of malicious third-party login attempts. With the release pushed to address the vulnerability, users are advised to update their wpDiscuz plugins beyond version 7.6.24. However, the delay in updating such plugins, often due to deployment intricacies and unawareness, keeps existing systems perpetually at risk from opportunistic threat actors.
Weakness
The weakness associated with this vulnerability is classified as CWE-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel. This occurs due to improper authentication processes, allowing attackers to bypass standard security measures and gain unauthorized access.
Impact Assessment
If exploited, this vulnerability could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to any user account, including those with administrative privilege, on affected WordPress sites. This access could lead to the alteration of website content, installation of malicious plugins, or compromise of sensitive user data, ultimately undermining the site’s integrity and posing substantial security risks to site owners and visitors.
Active Exploitation
There is currently no specific adversary group linked to the active exploitation of this vulnerability. However, the nature of the flaw poses a significant risk of opportunistic attacks, often by cybercriminals seeking to leverage automated tools to exploit easily accessible vulnerabilities in widespread platforms like WordPress.
Ransomware Association
At this stage, there are no direct correlations between this vulnerability and ransomware attacks. However, given the critical access levels possible through exploitation, threat actors could potentially use compromised sites in broader ransomware campaigns, leveraging compromised sites to distribute ransomware or exfiltrate valuable user data.
Mitigation and Resolution
We have released a patch that addresses this vulnerability in version 7.6.25 of the wpDiscuz plugin. Users of the plugin are strongly encouraged to update to this version or later as soon as possible to mitigate potential security risks.
Recommendations
- We strongly recommend that all customers apply the latest patch as soon as possible.
- Update the wpDiscuz plugin to version 7.6.25 or later to mitigate this vulnerability.
- Regularly review and audit user access logs for any abnormal activities or unauthorized login attempts.
- Implement strong, unique passwords for all administrative accounts to reduce the risk of brute force attacks.
- Consider disabling the social login feature temporarily if additional verification measures are not possible immediately.
- Educate users on recognizing phishing attempts that could lead to the compromise of their email accounts, part of the attack vector in this vulnerability.
- Regularly review security patches and updates for all plugins and themes installed on WordPress sites.
ย References
- CVE MITRE Details
- National Vulnerability Database
- WordPress Plugins – Wpdiscuz
- WordPress Plugins – Changeset
- Word Fence Threat Intel
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