CVE-2015-5532 in Paid Memberships Pro Plugin
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the Paid Memberships Pro (PMPro) plugin before 1.8.4.3 for WordPress allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the (1) s parameter to membershiplevels.php, (2) memberslist.php, or (3) orders.php in adminpages/ or the (4) edit parameter to adminpages/membershiplevels.php.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/25/2024
The CVE-2015-5532 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site scripting flaw affecting the Paid Memberships Pro WordPress plugin, which was widely used for membership management and subscription handling. This vulnerability existed in versions prior to 1.8.4.3 and exposed administrators and users to significant security risks through multiple attack vectors within the plugin's administrative interfaces. The flaw specifically targeted four distinct parameters across different plugin pages, creating multiple pathways for attackers to execute malicious code within the context of authenticated users' browsers.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and output escaping within the plugin's administrative components. Attackers could exploit the s parameter in membershiplevels.php, memberslist.php, and orders.php files located in the adminpages directory, as well as the edit parameter in membershiplevels.php. These parameters were directly incorporated into HTML output without proper sanitization or encoding, allowing malicious payloads to be injected and executed when administrators viewed these pages. The vulnerability operates under CWE-79 which specifically addresses cross-site scripting flaws where untrusted data is improperly incorporated into web pages without adequate validation or escaping mechanisms.
The operational impact of CVE-2015-5532 extends beyond simple script injection, as it could enable attackers to perform various malicious activities within the compromised WordPress environment. An attacker could potentially steal administrator session cookies, redirect users to malicious sites, inject phishing content, or even escalate privileges within the WordPress installation. The vulnerability particularly affected users with administrative privileges since the attack vectors were located within the plugin's administrative pages, making it especially dangerous for sites that relied heavily on membership management features. This flaw could have been leveraged to compromise entire WordPress installations through the exploitation of trusted administrative sessions.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately update to version 1.8.4.3 or later of the Paid Memberships Pro plugin to remediate the XSS vulnerabilities. System administrators should also implement additional security measures such as input validation at multiple layers, proper output encoding for all dynamic content, and regular security audits of WordPress plugins. The remediation process should include thorough testing of the updated plugin to ensure compatibility with existing site configurations and functionality. Security monitoring should be enhanced to detect any suspicious activity that might indicate exploitation attempts, and administrators should consider implementing web application firewalls to provide additional protection against similar vulnerabilities. This vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566 which covers credential access through social engineering and malicious code injection methods that exploit web application vulnerabilities.