The Awesome Support - WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass due to missing capability checks in all versions up to, and including, 6.3.6. This is due to the wpas_do_mr_activate_user function not verifying that a user has permission to modify other users roles, combined with a nonce reuse vulnerability where public registration nonces are valid for privileged actions because all actions share the same nonce namespace. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to demote administrators to low-privilege roles via the wpas-do=mr_activate_user action with a user-controlled user_id parameter, granted they can access the publicly available registration/submit ticket page to extract a valid nonce.
Weakness
The product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.
Potential Mitigations
- Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) [REF-229] to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries.
- Note that this approach may not protect against horizontal authorization, i.e., it will not protect a user from attacking others with the same role.
- Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
- For example, consider using authorization frameworks such as the JAAS Authorization Framework [REF-233] and the OWASP ESAPI Access Control feature [REF-45].
- For web applications, make sure that the access control mechanism is enforced correctly at the server side on every page. Users should not be able to access any unauthorized functionality or information by simply requesting direct access to that page.
- One way to do this is to ensure that all pages containing sensitive information are not cached, and that all such pages restrict access to requests that are accompanied by an active and authenticated session token associated with a user who has the required permissions to access that page.
Related Attack Patterns
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/awesome-support/tags/6.3.5/includes/functions-actions.php#L36
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/awesome-support/tags/6.3.5/includes/functions-actions.php#L66
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/awesome-support/tags/6.3.5/includes/functions-user.php#L1686
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/awesome-support/tags/6.3.5/themes/default/registration.php#L183
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3435609/awesome-support/trunk/includes/functions-user.php?contextall=1
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a5a8e4ca-c16b-4e9d-8ad2-5a671fdbc49a?source=cve