Authentication Bypass in Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder via Social Login

Executive Summary

CVE-2019-25763 is an authentication bypass vulnerability in the WordPress Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder plugin version 1.2.4.1. It allows attackers to gain unauthorized access by exploiting the social media login form functionality.

Attackers can send a specially crafted POST request to the admin-ajax.php endpoint with the uabb-lf-google-submit action, a valid administrator email address, and a valid nonce. This enables them to obtain session cookies and authenticate as the targeted user without proper authorization.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can have severe impacts as it allows attackers to bypass authentication and gain unauthorized access to the WordPress admin dashboard.

• Attackers can impersonate administrators, potentially leading to full control over the website.
• They can steal sensitive information, modify website content, or inject malicious code.
• The exploit requires no user interaction and can be performed remotely, increasing the risk of compromise.

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability can be detected by monitoring for suspicious POST requests to the admin-ajax.php endpoint with the action parameter set to uabb-lf-google-submit.

To detect potential exploitation attempts, you can look for POST requests containing a valid administrator email address and a nonce value targeting the admin-ajax.php endpoint.

A practical approach is to use network monitoring or web server logs to filter such requests.

• Use command-line tools like grep or awk on web server logs to find suspicious POST requests, for example:
• grep 'admin-ajax.php' /var/log/apache2/access.log | grep 'uabb-lf-google-submit'
• Use tools like tcpdump or Wireshark to capture and analyze HTTP POST traffic to admin-ajax.php.
• Check for unusual session cookie creation or authentication events correlating with these POST requests.

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Mitigation Strategies

The immediate and most effective mitigation step is to update the Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder plugin to version 1.2.4.1 or later, where this vulnerability is fixed.

Until the update can be applied, consider disabling or restricting access to the social media login form functionality that triggers the vulnerable POST request.

Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to block or monitor POST requests to admin-ajax.php with the action parameter uabb-lf-google-submit.

Review and tighten access controls and monitor for suspicious authentication activities.

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Compliance Impact

The vulnerability allows attackers to bypass authentication and gain unauthorized access to WordPress sites using the Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder plugin. This unauthorized access can lead to exposure or modification of sensitive data.

Such unauthorized access and potential data breaches can negatively impact compliance with common standards and regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, which require strict controls on access to personal and sensitive information.

Organizations using affected versions of the plugin may face increased risk of non-compliance due to the possibility of unauthorized data access or manipulation.

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