{"id":2875,"date":"2022-04-30T09:27:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T09:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seopolarity.com\/blog\/?p=2875"},"modified":"2022-04-30T18:03:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T18:03:58","slug":"wordpress-anti-malware-firewall-vulnerability-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seopolarity.com\/blog\/wordpress-anti-malware-firewall-vulnerability-found\/2022\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress Anti-Malware Firewall Vulnerability Found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability was discovered in a popular WordPress anti-malware plugin. This is a vulnerability that allows an attacker to compromise an administrator-level user on the affected website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WordPress Plugin Affected<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The vulnerability was discovered in the Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall plugin, which is used by over 200,000 websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall is a plugin that protects a website by acting as a firewall (to prevent incoming threats) and a security scanner (to detect security threats such as backdoor hacks and database injections).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A premium version protects websites from brute force attacks that attempt to guess passwords and usernames, as well as DDoS attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vulnerability for Cross-Site Scripting Reflected<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This plugin was discovered to have a vulnerability that could allow an attacker to launch a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (reflected XSS) attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability occurs when a WordPress website does not properly limit what can be input into the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Failure to restrict (sanitize) what is uploaded is essentially equivalent to leaving the website’s front door unlocked and allowing virtually anything to be uploaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read Solved WordPress Internal Server Error 500<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A hacker exploits this flaw by uploading a script and having the website reflect it back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When someone with administrator-level permissions visits a compromised URL created by the attacker, the script is activated using the administrator-level permissions stored in the victim’s browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vulnerability was described in the WPScan report on Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe plugin does not sanitise and escape the QUERY_STRING before outputting it back in an admin page, leading to a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting in browsers which do not encode characters\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The National Vulnerability Database of the United States Government has not yet assigned a severity level to this vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This plugin’s vulnerability is known as a Reflected XSS vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other types of XSS vulnerabilities, but these are the three most common:<\/p>\n\n\n\n