WordPress PHP Code Execution and Cross-Site Scripting

April 28, 2008 – 8:57 AM

Two vulnerabilities have been reported in WordPress, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks, bypass certain security restrictions, and to compromise a vulnerable system.

1) A vulnerability is caused due to improper access restriction of the administration section. This can be exploited to bypass the authentication mechanism and gain administrative access by setting a specially crafted cookie. This can further be exploited to execute arbitrary PHP code.

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires that registering new accounts is enabled.

The vulnerability is reported in version 2.5.

2) Input passed to an unspecified parameter is not properly sanitised before being returned to the user. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary HTML and script code in a user’s browser session in context of an affected site.

The vulnerability is reported in version 2.5. Prior versions may also be affected.

Solution:
Update to version 2.5.1.

Source: Secunia