Quick answers
- Is CVE-2016-10148 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2016-10148 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2016-10148?
- Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 4.3, published 18 January 2017.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- WordPress WordPress before 4.6.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2016-10148?
- A patch was published on 2016-08-16: Fixed in WordPress version 4.6 Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2016-10148 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.
- Am I affected by CVE-2016-10148?
- Check whether you run Wordpress. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
The wp_ajax_update_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress versions prior to 4.6 contains an improper access control vulnerability. The function calls get_plugin_data() before verifying the 'update_plugins' capability or validating CSRF tokens. A remote authenticated attacker, even with low privileges like a Subscriber, can exploit this by sending a crafted request to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with a specific plugin parameter. This allows the attacker to bypass intended read-access restrictions and potentially trigger a path traversal or denial of service condition. The issue was addressed in WordPress 4.6 by moving capability and CSRF checks to the beginning of the affected AJAX handlers.
Affected products
- WordPress WordPress before 4.6
Timeline
- 2016-07-12: disclosed: Vulnerability discovered by Yorick Koster
- 2016-08-16: patched: Fixed in WordPress version 4.6
- 2017-01-18: advisory: NVD published CVE-2016-10148