WordPress Security Audit Checklist for Production Sites
A WordPress security audit checklist should produce clear remediation actions, not a long report nobody executes. Use this guide to review core, plugins, themes, privileg...
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The Website LLMs.txt plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via admin settings in all versions up to, and including, 8.2.6 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level permissions and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. This only affects multi-site installations and installations where unfiltered_html has been disabled.
Update to version 8.2.7, or a newer patched version
The Responsive Blocks – Page Builder for Blocks & Patterns plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized access in all versions up to, and including, 2.2.1. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to modify global site-wide plugin configuration options, including toggling custom CSS, disabling blocks, changing layout defaults such as content width, container padding, and container gap, and altering auto-block-recovery behavior.
Update to version 2.2.2, or a newer patched version
The Responsive Blocks – Page Builder for Blocks & Patterns plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Unauthenticated Open Email Relay in all versions up to, and including, 2.2.0. This is due to insufficient authorization checks and missing server-side validation of the recipient email address supplied via a public REST API route. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to send arbitrary emails to any recipient of their choosing through the affected WordPress site's mail server, effectively turning the site into an open mail relay.
Update to version 2.2.1, or a newer patched version
The Plugin: CMS für Motorrad Werkstätten plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to SQL Injection via the 'arttype' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 1.0.0 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database.
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
The wpDataTables – WordPress Data Table, Dynamic Tables & Table Charts Plugin plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting in all versions up to, and including, 6.5.0.4. This is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping in the prepareCellOutput() method of the LinkWDTColumn, ImageWDTColumn, and EmailWDTColumn classes. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page, given that they can trick an Administrator into importing data from an attacker-controlled source and the affected column types (Link, Image, or Email) are configured.
Update to version 6.5.0.5, or a newer patched version
The Image Source Control Lite – Show Image Credits and Captions plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'Image Source' attachment field in all versions up to, and including, 3.9.1 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 3.9.2, or a newer patched version
The Everest Forms plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary File Read and Deletion in all versions up to, and including, 3.4.4. This is due to the plugin trusting attacker-controlled old_files data from public form submissions as legitimate server-side upload state, and converting attacker-supplied URLs into local filesystem paths using regex-based string replacement without canonicalization or directory boundary enforcement. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to read arbitrary local files (e.g., wp-config.php) by injecting path-traversal payloads into the old_files upload field parameter, which are then attached to notification emails. The same path resolution is also used in the post-email cleanup routine, which calls unlink() on the resolved path, resulting in the targeted file being deleted after being attached. This can lead to full site compromise through disclosure of database credentials and authentication salts from wp-config.php, and denial of service through deletion of critical files. Prerequisite: The form must contain a file-upload or image-upload field, and disable storing entry information.
Update to version 3.4.5, or a newer patched version
The wpForo Forum plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary File Deletion in versions up to and including 3.0.5. This is due to two compounding flaws: the Members::update() method does not validate or restrict the value of file-type custom profile fields, allowing authenticated users to store an arbitrary path instead of a legitimate upload path; and the wpforo_fix_upload_dir() sanitization function in ucf_file_delete() only remaps paths that match the expected pattern, and it is passed directly to the unlink() function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to delete arbitrary files on the server, which can easily lead to remote code execution when the right file is deleted (such as wp-config.php). Note: The vulnerability requires a file custom field, which requires the wpForo - User Custom Fields addon plugin.
Update to version 3.0.6, or a newer patched version
The Website LLMs.txt plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the 'tab' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 8.2.6. This is due to the use of filter_input() without a sanitization filter and insufficient output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick an administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.
Update to version 8.2.7, or a newer patched version
The EMC – Easily Embed Calendly Scheduling Features plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the plugin's calendly shortcode in all versions up to, and including, 4.4 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping on user supplied attributes. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.
Update to version 4.5, or a newer patched version
Use hub pages to review all indexed records for a single WordPress plugin or theme instead of scanning the global feed one advisory at a time.
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