WordPress Plugin Flaw Exposes 300,000+ to Hack Attacks

Hackers target vulnerable WordPress plugins as they provide a potential entry point to exploit website security weaknesses. 

These plugins often have outdated code or known vulnerabilities, which make them attractive targets for malicious actors seeking:-

• Unauthorized access to the websites
• To inject malicious code into websites

Recently, on December 14th, 2023, during the Bug Bounty Program of Wordfence, which is dubbed “Holiday Bug Extravaganza,” the following cybersecurity researchers reported an “Authorization Bypass” vulnerability in “POST SMTP Mailer.” 

• Ulyses Saicha
• Sean Murphy

This is a WordPress plugin with more than 300,000 active installations, and successfully exploiting this bug could let the hackers reset the API key.

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WordPress Plugin SMTP Flaw

Using the vulnerable Mailer plugin on WordPress sites, the vulnerability allows unauthorized threat actors to do the following things:-

• Reset API keys
• View logs
• Access password reset emails
• Hack sites

A critical vulnerability, identified as CVE-2023-6875 with a VSS Score of 9.8, has been detected. It is highly recommended that users update to the patched version 2.8.8 to address the issue.

Another report unveiled that the POST SMTP Mailer had a Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability that allowed malicious scripts to be injected into websites.

The cybersecurity researchers earned a handsome bounty reward from the Bounty Program Extravaganza, and here below, we have mentioned the reward figures:-

• Ulyses Saicha earned $4,125
• Sean Murphy earned $825

On December 8, 2023, the cybersecurity analysts at Wordfence notified WPExperts.io about the vulnerability, and by December 10, 2023, they received the response.

In response, WPExperts[.]io developers acted promptly and issued a patch on January 1, 2024. Not only that, they even urged all the users to immediately update their vulnerable version to the latest patched version, 2.8.8.

Vulnerability in POST SMTP Mailer (up to version 2.8.7) allows unauthorized access and data modification via a type juggling issue in the connect-app REST endpoint.

Stored Cross-Site Scripting risk in POST SMTP Mailer (up to version 2.8.7) arises from inadequate input sanitization in the ‘device’ header, and unauthenticated attackers can inject harmful scripts.

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