The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 4.9 This is due to a missing ownership and capability check on the user parameter within the process_edit() function, which allows any authenticated user with the edit_contacts capability to reassign a contact records linked WordPress user ID to any arbitrary account without requiring the edit_users or promote_users capabilities. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with sales_rep-level access and above, to escalate their privileges to administrator by linking a contact to an administrators WordPress user ID, then creating a note containing the {auto_login_link} replacement tag to trigger generation of a valid auto-login permissions-key URL for the administrator-linked contact, and finally visiting that URL to authenticate as the targeted administrator. The auto-login URL is stored in the note content and is readable back by the attacker via the view_notes and add_notes capabilities that the sales_rep role holds by default.
Weakness
The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.
Potential Mitigations
Related Attack Patterns
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/122.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/233.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/58.html
References
- https://github.com/groundhoggwp/groundhogg/commit/804abf42a
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.9/admin/contacts/contacts-page.php#L507
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.9/admin/contacts/contacts-page.php#L565
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.9/includes/classes/note.php#L58
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.9/includes/replacements.php#L1811
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.9/includes/rewrites.php#L471
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=\u0026new=3724910%40groundhogg%2Ftags%2F4.9.1\u0026old=3724058%40groundhogg%2Ftags%2F4.9
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/715b4d10-b19a-4b37-8a76-985c37975c93?source=cve