Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Vulnerabilities

Critical Vulnerability in Elementor Plugin Impacts Millions of WordPress Sites

A critical vulnerability addressed in the Elementor WordPress plugin could allow authenticated users to upload arbitrary files to affected websites, potentially leading to code execution.

Elementor is a drag-and-drop website builder for WordPress that has more than 5 million installations.

A critical vulnerability addressed in the Elementor WordPress plugin could allow authenticated users to upload arbitrary files to affected websites, potentially leading to code execution.

Elementor is a drag-and-drop website builder for WordPress that has more than 5 million installations.

Considered critical, the newly addressed vulnerability was apparently introduced on March 22, in version 3.6.0 of the plugin. Roughly one-third of websites were running a vulnerable version when the bug was found.

Researchers with Plugin Vulnerabilities, who identified the flaw, say that the issue exists because some functionalities did not perform capability checks, thus becoming available to users who shouldn’t have had access to them.

[ READ: Critical Flaw Impacts WordPress Plugin With 1 Million Installations ]

Due to the vulnerability, any authenticated user, regardless of their authorization, could make changes to the site, including by uploading arbitrary files.

Thus, the security hole could be exploited to achieve code execution and potentially completely take over the vulnerable site.

According to Patchstack researchers, the flaw resides in an “onboarding” module loaded on every request, and which was found hooked into the admin_init WordPress hook.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“This hook is fired on any admin-related screen/script but does not necessarily imply that it’s only fired when a higher privileged user is logged in on the site,” WordPress security company Patchstack explains.

The faulty module executes a POST payload action after checking if it has been sent along with a valid nonce, but, because the nonce token is sent to any authenticated user, it allows anyone to perform actions, regardless of their authorization.

The issue was addressed with the release of Elementor version 3.6.3. WordPress admins are advised to update to a patched version of the plugin as soon as possible.

Related: Elementor Plugin Vulnerabilities Exploited to Hack WordPress Sites

Related: Vulnerability That Allows Complete WordPress Site Takeover Exploited in the Wild

Related: Many WordPress Sites Affected by Vulnerabilities in ‘Popup Builder’ Plugin

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this event as we dive into threat hunting tools and frameworks, and explore value of threat intelligence data in the defender’s security stack.

Register

Learn how integrating BAS and Automated Penetration Testing empowers security teams to quickly identify and validate threats, enabling prompt response and remediation.

Register

People on the Move

Wendi Whitmore has taken the role of Chief Security Intelligence Officer at Palo Alto Networks.

Phil Venables, former CISO of Google Cloud, has joined Ballistic Ventures as a Venture Partner.

David Currie, former CISO of Nubank and Klarna, has been appointed CEO of Vaultree.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.