WordPress LayerSlide Plugin Bug Risks Password Hash Extraction

Security Flaw In WP-Members Plugin Leads To Script Injection

Discontinued Security Plugins Expose Many WordPress Sites To Takeover

Ultimate Member Plugin Flaw Exposes 100,000 WordPress Sites To Attacks

Websites Hacked Via Vuln In Bricks Builder WordPress Plugin

WordPress Bricks Theme Under Active Attack: Critical Flaw Impacts 25,000+ Sites

A critical security flaw in the Bricks theme for WordPress is being actively exploited by threat actors to run arbitrary PHP code on susceptible installations. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-25600 (CVSS score: 9.8), enables unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution. It impacts all versions of the Bricks up to and including 1.9.6. It has been addressed by the theme developers in&

Russian Turla Hackers Target Polish NGOs with New TinyTurla-NG Backdoor

The Russia-linked threat actor known as Turla has been observed using a new backdoor called TinyTurla-NG as part of a three-month-long campaign targeting Polish non-governmental organizations in December 2023. "TinyTurla-NG, just like TinyTurla, is a small 'last chance' backdoor that is left behind to be used when all other unauthorized access/backdoor mechanisms have failed or been

VexTrio: The Uber of Cybercrime - Brokering Malware for 60+ Affiliates

The threat actors behind ClearFake, SocGholish, and dozens of other e-crime outfits have established partnerships with another entity known as VexTrio as part of a massive "criminal affiliate program," new findings from Infoblox reveal. The latest development demonstrates the "breadth of their activities and depth of their connections within the cybercrime industry," the company said,

Balada Injector Infects Over 7,100 WordPress Sites Using Plugin Vulnerability

Thousands of WordPress sites using a vulnerable version of the Popup Builder plugin have been compromised with a malware called Balada Injector. First documented by Doctor Web in January 2023, the campaign takes place in a series of periodic attack waves, weaponizing security flaws WordPress plugins to inject backdoor designed to redirect visitors of infected sites to bogus tech

Rogue WordPress Plugin Exposes E-Commerce Sites to Credit Card Theft

Threat hunters have discovered a rogue WordPress plugin that's capable of creating bogus administrator users and injecting malicious JavaScript code to steal credit card information. The skimming activity is part of a Magecart campaign targeting e-commerce websites, according to Sucuri. "As with many other malicious or fake WordPress plugins it contains some deceptive information at

WordPress 6.4.2 Patches Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

WordPress Releases Update 6.4.2 to Address Critical Remote Attack Vulnerability

WordPress has released version 6.4.2 with a patch for a critical security flaw that could be exploited by threat actors by combining it with another bug to execute arbitrary PHP code on vulnerable sites. "A remote code execution vulnerability that is not directly exploitable in core; however, the security team feels that there is a potential for high severity when combined with some plugins,

PSA: Fake CVE-2023-45124 Phishing Scam Tricks Users Into Installing Backdoor Plugin

Beware: Malicious Google Ads Trick WinSCP Users into Installing Malware

Threat actors are leveraging manipulated search results and bogus Google ads that trick users who are looking to download legitimate software such as WinSCP into installing malware instead. Cybersecurity company Securonix is tracking the ongoing activity under the name SEO#LURKER. “The malicious advertisement directs the user to a compromised WordPress website gameeweb[.]com, which redirects the

Binance's Smart Chain Exploited in New 'EtherHiding' Malware Campaign

Threat actors have been observed serving malicious code by utilizing Binance's Smart Chain (BSC) contracts in what has been described as the "next level of bulletproof hosting." The campaign, detected two months ago, has been codenamed EtherHiding by Guardio Labs. The novel twist marks the latest iteration in an ongoing malware campaign that leverages compromised WordPress sites to serve

Patch Tuesday, October 2023 Edition

Microsoft today issued security updates for more than 100 newly-discovered vulnerabilities in its Windows operating system and related software, including four flaws that are already being exploited. In addition, Apple recently released emergency updates to quash a pair of zero-day bugs in iOS.

Apple last week shipped emergency updates in iOS 17.0.3 and iPadOS 17.0.3 in response to active attacks. The patch fixes CVE-2023-42724, which attackers have been using in targeted attacks to elevate their access on a local device.

Apple said it also patched CVE-2023-5217, which is not listed as a zero-day bug. However, as Bleeping Computer pointed out, this flaw is caused by a weakness in the open-source “libvpx” video codec library, which was previously patched as a zero-day flaw by Google in the Chrome browser and by Microsoft in Edge, Teams, and Skype products. For anyone keeping count, this is the 17th zero-day flaw that Apple has patched so far this year.

Fortunately, the zero-days affecting Microsoft customers this month are somewhat less severe than usual, with the exception of CVE-2023-44487. This weakness is not specific to Windows but instead exists within the HTTP/2 protocol used by the World Wide Web: Attackers have figured out how to use a feature of HTTP/2 to massively increase the size of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and these monster attacks reportedly have been going on for several weeks now.

Amazon, Cloudflare and Google all released advisories today about how they’re addressing CVE-2023-44487 in their cloud environments. Google’s Damian Menscher wrote on Twitter/X that the exploit — dubbed a “rapid reset attack” — works by sending a request and then immediately cancelling it (a feature of HTTP/2). “This lets attackers skip waiting for responses, resulting in a more efficient attack,” Menscher explained.

Natalie Silva, lead security engineer at Immersive Labs, said this flaw’s impact to enterprise customers could be significant, and lead to prolonged downtime.

“It is crucial for organizations to apply the latest patches and updates from their web server vendors to mitigate this vulnerability and protect against such attacks,” Silva said. In this month’s Patch Tuesday release by Microsoft, they have released both an update to this vulnerability, as well as a temporary workaround should you not be able to patch immediately.”

Microsoft also patched zero-day bugs in Skype for Business (CVE-2023-41763) and Wordpad (CVE-2023-36563). The latter vulnerability could expose NTLM hashes, which are used for authentication in Windows environments.

“It may or may not be a coincidence that Microsoft announced last month that WordPad is no longer being updated, and will be removed in a future version of Windows, although no specific timeline has yet been given,” said Adam Barnett, lead software engineer at Rapid7. “Unsurprisingly, Microsoft recommends Word as a replacement for WordPad.”

Other notable bugs addressed by Microsoft include CVE-2023-35349, a remote code execution weakness in the Message Queuing (MSMQ) service, a technology that allows applications across multiple servers or hosts to communicate with each other. This vulnerability has earned a CVSS severity score of 9.8 (10 is the worst possible). Happily, the MSMQ service is not enabled by default in Windows, although Immersive Labs notes that Microsoft Exchange Server can enable this service during installation.

Speaking of Exchange, Microsoft also patched CVE-2023-36778,  a vulnerability in all current versions of Exchange Server that could allow attackers to run code of their choosing. Rapid7’s Barnett said successful exploitation requires that the attacker be on the same network as the Exchange Server host, and use valid credentials for an Exchange user in a PowerShell session.

For a more detailed breakdown on the updates released today, see the SANS Internet Storm Center roundup. If today’s updates cause any stability or usability issues in Windows, AskWoody.com will likely have the lowdown on that.

Please consider backing up your data and/or imaging your system before applying any updates. And feel free to sound off in the comments if you experience any difficulties as a result of these patches.

Thousands Of WordPress Sites Have Been Hacked Through tagDiv Vuln

Multiple Flaws Found in Ninja Forms Plugin Leave 800,000 Sites Vulnerable

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the Ninja Forms plugin for WordPress that could be exploited by threat actors to escalate privileges and steal sensitive data. The flaws, tracked as CVE-2023-37979, CVE-2023-38386, and CVE-2023-38393, impact versions 3.6.25 and below, Patchstack said in a report last week. Ninja Forms is installed on over 800,000 sites. A brief description

Mass Attack On WordPress Sites Targets Bug In WooCommerce Plugin

Cybercriminals Exploiting WooCommerce Payments Plugin Flaw to Hijack Websites

Threat actors are actively exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw in the WooCommerce Payments WordPress plugin as part of a massive targeted campaign. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-28121 (CVSS score: 9.8), is a case of authentication bypass that enables unauthenticated attackers to impersonate arbitrary users and perform some actions as the impersonated user, including an

AIOS WordPress Plugin Faces Backlash for Storing User Passwords in Plaintext

All-In-One Security (AIOS), a WordPress plugin installed on over one million sites, has issued a security update after a bug introduced in version 5.1.9 of the software caused users' passwords being added to the database in plaintext format. "A malicious site administrator (i.e. a user already logged into the site as an admin) could then have read them," UpdraftPlus, the maintainers of AIOS, 

WordPress Security Plugin Caught Logging Plaintext Passwords

Improve Your Security WordPress Spam Protection With CleanTalk Anti-Spam

Every website owner or webmaster grapples with the issue of spam on their website forms. The volume of spam can be so overwhelming that finding useful information within it becomes quite challenging. What exacerbates this issue is that spam can populate your public pages, appearing in comments and reviews. You likely understand how this can damage your website's reputation, affect search results

Hackers Exploiting Unpatched WordPress Plugin Flaw to Create Secret Admin Accounts

As many as 200,000 WordPress websites are at risk of ongoing attacks exploiting a critical unpatched security vulnerability in the Ultimate Member plugin. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-3460 (CVSS score: 9.8), impacts all versions of the Ultimate Member plugin, including the latest version (2.6.6) that was released on June 29, 2023. Ultimate Member is a popular plugin that facilitates the

Critical Security Flaw in Social Login Plugin for WordPress Exposes Users' Accounts

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in miniOrange's Social Login and Register plugin for WordPress that could enable a malicious actor to log in as any user-provided information about email address is already known. Tracked as CVE-2023-2982 (CVSS score: 9.8), the authentication bypass flaw impacts all versions of the plugin, including and prior to 7.6.4. It was addressed on June 14, 2023

Critical Flaw Found in WordPress Plugin for WooCommerce Used by 30,000 Websites

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the WordPress "Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce" plugin that's installed on more than 30,000 websites. "This vulnerability makes it possible for an attacker to gain access to the accounts of users who have abandoned their carts, who are typically customers but can extend to other high-level users when the right conditions are met," Defiant's

Critical Security Vulnerability Discovered in WooCommerce Stripe Gateway Plugin

A security flaw has been uncovered in the WooCommerce Stripe Gateway WordPress plugin that could lead to the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-34000, impacts versions 7.4.0 and below. It was addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 7.4.1, which shipped on May 30, 2023. WooCommerce Stripe Gateway allows e-commerce websites to directly accept

Urgent WordPress Update Fixes Critical Flaw in Jetpack Plugin on Million of Sites

WordPress has issued an automatic update to address a critical flaw in the Jetpack plugin that’s installed on over five million sites. The vulnerability, which was unearthed during an internal security audit, resides in an API present in the plugin since version 2.0, which was released in November 2012. “This vulnerability could be used by authors on a site to manipulate any files in the

New Flaw in WordPress Plugin Used by Over a Million Sites Under Active Exploitation

A security vulnerability has been disclosed in the popular WordPress plugin Essential Addons for Elementor that could be potentially exploited to achieve elevated privileges on affected sites. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-32243, has been addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 5.7.2 that was shipped on May 11, 2023. Essential Addons for Elementor has over one million active

WordPress Plugin Hole Puts 2 Million Websites At Risk

New Vulnerability in Popular WordPress Plugin Exposes Over 2 Million Sites to Cyberattacks

Users of Advanced Custom Fields plugin for WordPress are being urged to update version 6.1.6 following the discovery of a security flaw. The issue, assigned the identifier CVE-2023-30777, relates to a case of reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) that could be abused to inject arbitrary executable scripts into otherwise benign websites. The plugin, which is available both as a free and pro

Hackers Exploit Outdated WordPress Plugin to Backdoor Thousands of WordPress Sites

Threat actors have been observed leveraging a legitimate but outdated WordPress plugin to surreptitiously backdoor websites as part of an ongoing campaign, Sucuri revealed in a report published last week. The plugin in question is Eval PHP, released by a developer named flashpixx. It allows users to insert PHP code pages and posts of WordPress sites that's then executed every time the posts are

Malware Campaign Infects A Million WordPress Sites Since 2017

Over 1 Million WordPress Sites Infected by Balada Injector Malware Campaign

Over one million WordPress websites are estimated to have been infected by an ongoing campaign to deploy malware called Balada Injector since 2017. The massive campaign, per GoDaddy's Sucuri, "leverages all known and recently discovered theme and plugin vulnerabilities" to breach WordPress sites. The attacks are known to play out in waves once every few weeks. "This campaign is easily identified

Hackers Exploit WordPress Plugin Flaw That Gives Full Control Of Millions Of Sites

Hackers Exploiting WordPress Elementor Pro Vulnerability: Millions of Sites at Risk!

Unknown threat actors are actively exploiting a recently patched security vulnerability in the Elementor Pro website builder plugin for WordPress. The flaw, described as a case of broken access control, impacts versions 3.11.6 and earlier. It was addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 3.11.7 released on March 22. "Improved code security enforcement in WooCommerce components," the Tel

WooCommerce Payments plugin for WordPress has an admin-level hole – patch now!

Admin-level holes in websites are always a bad thing... and for "bad", read "worse" if it's an e-commerce site.

Critical WooCommerce Payments Plugin Flaw Patched for 500,000+ WordPress Sites

Patches have been released for a critical security flaw impacting the WooCommerce Payments plugin for WordPress, which is installed on over 500,000 websites. The flaw, if left unresolved, could enable a bad actor to gain unauthorized admin access to impacted stores, the company said in an advisory on March 23, 2023. It impacts versions 4.8.0 through 5.6.1. Put differently, the issue could permit

~11,000 Sites Have Been Infected With Malware That's Good At Avoiding Detection

Over 4,500 WordPress Sites Hacked to Redirect Visitors to Sketchy Ad Pages

A massive campaign has infected over 4,500 WordPress websites as part of a long-running operation that's been believed to be active since at least 2017. According to GoDaddy-owned Sucuri, the infections involve the injection of obfuscated JavaScript hosted on a malicious domain named "track[.]violetlovelines[.]com" that's designed to redirect visitors to undesirable sites. The latest operation 

Hundreds Of WordPress Sites Infected By Recently Discovered Backdoor

WordPress Security Alert: New Linux Malware Exploiting Over Two Dozen CMS Flaws

WordPress sites are being targeted by a previously unknown strain of Linux malware that exploits flaws in over two dozen plugins and themes to compromise vulnerable systems. "If sites use outdated versions of such add-ons, lacking crucial fixes, the targeted web pages are injected with malicious JavaScripts," Russian security vendor Doctor Web said in a report published last week. "As a result,

New GoTrim Botnet Attempting to Break into WordPress Sites' Admin Accounts

A new Go-based botnet has been spotted scanning and brute-forcing self-hosted websites using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to seize control of targeted systems. "This new brute forcer is part of a new campaign we have named GoTrim because it was written in Go and uses ':::trim:::' to split data communicated to and from the C2 server," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researchers Eduardo

Over 15,000 WordPress Sites Compromised in Malicious SEO Campaign

A new malicious campaign has compromised over 15,000 WordPress websites in an attempt to redirect visitors to bogus Q&A portals. "These malicious redirects appear to be designed to increase the authority of the attacker's sites for search engines," Sucuri researcher Ben Martin said in a report published last week, calling it a "clever black hat SEO trick." The search engine poisoning technique

What Does The Fox Hack? Breaking Down The Anonymous Fox F-Automatical Script

Hackers Started Exploiting Critical "Text4Shell" Apache Commons Text Vulnerability

WordPress security company Wordfence on Thursday said it started detecting exploitation attempts targeting the newly disclosed flaw in Apache Commons Text on October 18, 2022. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-42889 aka Text4Shell, has been assigned a severity ranking of 9.8 out of a possible 10.0 on the CVSS scale and affects versions 1.5 through 1.9 of the library. It's also similar to

Over 280,000 WordPress Sites Attacked Using WPGateway Plugin Zero-Day Vulnerability

A zero-day flaw in the latest version of a WordPress premium plugin known as WPGateway is being actively exploited in the wild, potentially allowing malicious actors to completely take over affected sites. Tracked as CVE-2022-3180 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue is being weaponized to add a malicious administrator user to sites running the WPGateway plugin, WordPress security company Wordfence

Hackers Exploit Zero-Day in WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin in ~5 Million Attempts

A zero-day flaw in a WordPress plugin called BackupBuddy is being actively exploited, WordPress security company Wordfence has disclosed. "This vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated users to download arbitrary files from the affected site which can include sensitive information," it said. BackupBuddy allows users to back up their entire WordPress installation from within the

Hackers Use ModernLoader to Infect Systems with Stealers and Cryptominers

As many as three disparate but related campaigns between March and Jun 2022 have been found to deliver a variety of malware, including ModernLoader, RedLine Stealer, and cryptocurrency miners onto compromised systems. "The actors use PowerShell, .NET assemblies, and HTA and VBS files to spread across a targeted network, eventually dropping other pieces of malware, such as the SystemBC trojan and

Hackers Using Fake DDoS Protection Pages to Distribute Malware

WordPress sites are being hacked to display fraudulent Cloudflare DDoS protection pages that lead to the delivery of malware such as NetSupport RAT and Raccoon Stealer. "A recent surge in JavaScript injections targeting WordPress sites has resulted in fake DDoS prevent prompts which lead victims to download remote access trojan malware," Sucuri's Ben Martin said in a write-up published last week

Ukrainian Website Threat Landscape Throughout 2022

Microsoft Adds Default Protection Against RDP Brute-Force Attacks in Windows 11

Microsoft is now taking steps to prevent Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) brute-force attacks as part of the latest builds for the Windows 11 operating system in an attempt to raise the security baseline to meet the evolving threat landscape. To that end, the default policy for Windows 11 builds – particularly, Insider Preview builds 22528.1000 and newer – will automatically lock accounts for 10

Experts Notice Sudden Surge in Exploitation of WordPress Page Builder Plugin Vulnerability

Researchers from Wordfence have sounded the alarm about a "sudden" spike in cyber attacks attempting to exploit an unpatched flaw in a WordPress plugin called Kaswara Modern WPBakery Page Builder Addons. Tracked as CVE-2021-24284, the issue is rated 10.0 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system and relates to an unauthenticated arbitrary file upload that could be abused to gain code execution,

Over a Million WordPress Sites Forcibly Updated to Patch a Critical Plugin Vulnerability

WordPress websites using a widely used plugin named Ninja Forms have been updated automatically to remediate a critical security vulnerability that's suspected of having been actively exploited in the wild. The issue, which relates to a case of code injection, is rated 9.8 out of 10 for severity and affects multiple versions starting from 3.0. It has been fixed in 3.0.34.2, 3.1.10, 3.2.28,

YODA Tool Found ~47,000 Malicious WordPress Plugins Installed in Over 24,000 Sites

As many as 47,337 malicious plugins have been uncovered on 24,931 unique websites, out of which 3,685 plugins were sold on legitimate marketplaces, netting the attackers $41,500 in illegal revenues. The findings come from a new tool called YODA that aims to detect rogue WordPress plugins and track down their origin, according to an 8-year-long study conducted by a group of researchers from the

Researchers Find Backdoor Lurking In WP Plugin Used By Schools

Researchers Find Backdoor in School Management Plugin for WordPress

Multiple versions of a WordPress plugin by the name of "School Management Pro" harbored a backdoor that could grant an adversary complete control over vulnerable websites. The issue, spotted in premium versions before 9.9.7, has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2022-1609 and is rated 10 out of 10 for severity. The backdoor, which is believed to have existed since version 8.9, enables "an

Hackers Are Exploiting WordPress Tools To Hawk Scams

Thousands of WordPress Sites Hacked to Redirect Visitors to Scam Sites

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a massive campaign that's responsible for injecting malicious JavaScript code into compromised WordPress websites that redirects visitors to scam pages and other malicious websites to generate illegitimate traffic. "The websites all shared a common issue — malicious JavaScript had been injected within their website's files and the database, including

Vulnerable Plugins Plague The CMS Website Security Landscape