Controlled Admin Access < 1.5.2 - Improper Access Control & Privilege Escalation

2021-03-2300:00:00

m0ze

improper access control

privilege escalation

uncontrolled access

website customization

global cms settings

complete compromise

attack vectors

temporary administrator

system privileges

full control

EPSS

0.275

Percentile

96.9%

JSON

An Improper Access Control vulnerability was discovered in the plugin. Uncontrolled access to the website customization functionality and global CMS settings, like /wp-admin/customization.php and /wp-admin/options.php, can lead to a complete compromise of the target resource. Even with the maximum restrictions for a temporary administrator account, several attack vectors are possible against the targeted website, the simplest and fastest is raising system privileges to the administrator level (w/o restrictions) and taking full control of the attacked website.

Created a temporary admin account via the plugin (/wp-admin/users.php?page=controlled_admin_access), with limited access and open the below URLs which should not be accessible

### -- [ PoC #1 | Improper Access Control | Customize: ]

[!] https://example.com/wp-admin/customize.php


### -- [ PoC #2 | Improper Access Control | All Settings: ]

[!] https://example.com/wp-admin/options.php