Information Exposure in WP Forms Connector Plugin

Compliance Impact

This vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to retrieve sensitive user information, including password hashes and email addresses, by exploiting weak authentication in the WP Forms Connector plugin.

Exposure of such sensitive personal data can lead to non-compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, which require the protection of personal and sensitive information against unauthorized access.

Organizations using the affected plugin may face increased risk of data breaches, potentially resulting in regulatory penalties and loss of trust.

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Executive Summary

The WP Forms Connector plugin for WordPress has a vulnerability in all versions up to and including 1.8 that allows information exposure. The plugin registers a REST route that uses a custom authentication method which only checks if the 'Username' HTTP header corresponds to an administrator account and that the 'Password' HTTP header is non-empty. However, it does not actually verify the password using the proper WordPress password check function. This flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to send requests with any password and a valid administrator username to retrieve sensitive information about any registered user ID.

Specifically, attackers can obtain sensitive data such as the WordPress password hash (user_pass) and email address of users.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can have a significant impact by exposing sensitive user information without proper authentication. Attackers can retrieve password hashes and email addresses of any registered user, which could lead to further attacks such as password cracking, unauthorized access, phishing, or identity theft.

Because the vulnerability allows unauthenticated access to administrator-level information, it poses a high confidentiality risk.

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability can be detected by monitoring for HTTP requests to the REST route wp/v3/user/list/<id> that include a 'Username' HTTP header with an administrator username and a non-empty 'Password' HTTP header.

You can use network traffic inspection tools like tcpdump or Wireshark to capture and analyze such requests.

• Example tcpdump command to capture HTTP requests to the vulnerable endpoint: tcpdump -i any -A 'tcp port 80 and (((ip[2:2] - ((ip[0]&0xf)<<2)) - ((tcp[12]&0xf0)>>2)) != 0)' | grep 'wp/v3/user/list/'
• Use curl to test the endpoint manually: curl -H 'Username: admin' -H 'Password: anyvalue' http://yourwordpresssite/wp-json/wp/v3/user/list/1

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Mitigation Strategies

Immediate mitigation steps include updating the WP Forms Connector plugin to a version later than 1.8 where this vulnerability is fixed.

If an update is not immediately available, restrict access to the vulnerable REST endpoint by implementing firewall rules or web server access controls to block unauthorized requests to wp/v3/user/list/<id>.

Additionally, monitor logs for suspicious requests to this endpoint and consider changing administrator usernames from default values like 'admin' to reduce the risk of exploitation.

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