Wordpress : Security Vulnerabilities (Gain Privilege)

Improper authentication vulnerability in WordPress versions prior to 6.0.3 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to obtain the email address of the user who posted a blog using the WordPress Post by Email Feature. The developer also provides new patched releases for all versions since 3.7.

In affected versions of WordPress, some private posts, which were previously public, can result in unauthenticated disclosure under a specific set of conditions. This has been patched in version 5.4.1, along with all the previously affected versions via a minor release (5.3.3, 5.2.6, 5.1.5, 5.0.9, 4.9.14, 4.8.13, 4.7.17, 4.6.18, 4.5.21, 4.4.22, 4.3.23, 4.2.27, 4.1.30, 4.0.30, 3.9.31, 3.8.33, 3.7.33).

The wp_ajax_update_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress before 4.6 makes a get_plugin_data call before checking the update_plugins capability, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended read-access restrictions via the plugin parameter to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, a related issue to CVE-2016-6896.

WordPress before 4.5 does not consider octal and hexadecimal IP address formats when determining an intranet address, which allows remote attackers to bypass an intended SSRF protection mechanism via a crafted address.

WordPress before 4.2.3 does not properly verify the edit_posts capability, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions and create drafts by leveraging the Subscriber role, as demonstrated by a post-quickdraft-save action to wp-admin/post.php.

The wp_validate_auth_cookie function in wp-includes/pluggable.php in WordPress before 3.7.2 and 3.8.x before 3.8.2 does not properly determine the validity of authentication cookies, which makes it easier for remote attackers to obtain access via a forged cookie.

A flaw exists in Wordpress related to the 'wp-admin/press-this.php 'script improperly checking user permissions when publishing posts. This may allow a user with 'Contributor-level' privileges to post as if they had 'publish_posts' permission.

wp-admin/admin.php in WordPress and WordPress MU before 2.8.1 does not require administrative authentication to access the configuration of a plugin, which allows remote attackers to specify a configuration file in the page parameter to obtain sensitive information or modify this file, as demonstrated by the (1) collapsing-archives/options.txt, (2) akismet/readme.txt, (3) related-ways-to-take-action/options.php, (4) wp-security-scan/securityscan.php, and (5) wp-ids/ids-admin.php files. NOTE: this can be leveraged for cross-site scripting (XSS) and denial of service.

The cookie authentication method in WordPress 2.5 relies on a hash of a concatenated string containing USERNAME and EXPIRY_TIME, which allows remote attackers to forge cookies by registering a username that results in the same concatenated string, as demonstrated by registering usernames beginning with "admin" to obtain administrator privileges, aka a "cryptographic splicing" issue. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2007-6013.

Wordpress 1.5 through 2.3.1 uses cookie values based on the MD5 hash of a password MD5 hash, which allows attackers to bypass authentication by obtaining the MD5 hash from the user database, then generating the authentication cookie from that hash.