If you have been following the latest cybersecurity news, then you might know that ThemePunch OHG's Essential Grid, a popular WordPress plugin, has recently been discovered to have a Missing Authorization vulnerability. This security flaw, titled CVE-2023-47771, impacts Essential Grid versions up to 3..18. In this post, we will dive into the details of this vulnerability, provide you with code snippets, and point you to the original references to address this issue.

Before we dive into the details, let's understand what Essential Grid is. Essential Grid is a widely-used plugin for creating grid-like layouts for your WordPress website content. Many website developers rely on it for designing their content pages. The problem arises because Essential Grid does not implement proper user role and capability checks when processing certain administrative actions, which can lead to unauthorized data access.

Exploit Details

This vulnerability, CVE-2023-47771, was discovered by Julio Potier, who highlighted that it impacts Essential Grid versions up to 3..18. Julio Potier, working with ThemePunch, reported this as an issue, which allowed ThemePunch to address it quickly and release a fixed version, 3..19. The vulnerability exists due to insufficient user role and capability checks on specific AJAX actions. An attacker can potentially exploit this and gain unauthorized access to data and administrative actions in the web application.

Here's a code snippet to help explain the situation

// Inside the vulnerable Essential Grid version, no proper capability check is present
function eg_ajax_get_navigation_skin_css_callback() {
    // ...
    // Some code is processing here without checking user role or capability
    // ...
}

A proper user capability check would look something like this

// Inside the fixed version of Essential Grid, applying a proper capability check
function eg_ajax_get_navigation_skin_css_callback() {
    // Check if the user has the required capability to process the request
    if (!current_user_can('manage_options')) {
        wp_die(-1);
    }
    
    // Continue processing knowing that the user has proper permissions
    // ...
}

References to Original Sources

1. Potier's Security Advisory for CVE-2023-47771: This is the original advisory report posted by Julio Potier, where he explains the issue in-depth and shares the steps to reproduce the vulnerability.
2. ThemePunch Changelog: ThemePunch, the developer behind Essential Grid, has included details about this vulnerability in the changelog for version 3..19. You can find information about other changes and fixes as well.
3. CVE entry on MITRE: Keep track of further updates on this vulnerability by following its CVE entry on the MITRE website.

Final Thoughts

The discovery of this Missing Authorization vulnerability in Essential Grid (CVE-2023-47771) serves as a reminder to always keep an eye on your plugins' security and to follow proper development practices to avoid similar issues. Updating to the latest Essential Grid version (3..19 at the time of writing) will resolve this vulnerability. Always ensure to follow standard protocols for granting user roles and capabilities checks, as demonstrated in the provided code snippets. Stay safe and maintain good cybersecurity practices!

Timeline

Published on: 06/19/2024 11:15:49 UTC
Last modified on: 06/21/2024 14:47:40 UTC