CVE-2016-11004 in Elegant Themes Monarch Plugin
Summary
by MITRE
The Elegant Themes Monarch plugin before 1.2.7 for WordPress has privilege escalation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/26/2023
The Elegant Themes Monarch plugin vulnerability CVE-2016-11004 represents a critical privilege escalation flaw affecting WordPress installations. This vulnerability specifically impacts versions prior to 1.2.7 of the Monarch plugin, which is a popular theme builder and page builder tool used by thousands of WordPress websites. The flaw allows authenticated attackers with lower privileges to escalate their access rights within the WordPress administration interface, potentially gaining unauthorized control over sensitive system functions and user data. The vulnerability exists due to insufficient input validation and access control mechanisms within the plugin's administrative components, creating a pathway for malicious actors to bypass standard security measures.
The technical implementation of this privilege escalation vulnerability stems from inadequate authorization checks within the plugin's core functionality. Attackers with accounts possessing minimal privileges such as subscribers or contributors can exploit this flaw to execute administrative actions through crafted requests that manipulate the plugin's internal access control logic. This weakness aligns with CWE-285, which categorizes improper authorization vulnerabilities, and demonstrates how insufficient access control validation can lead to unauthorized privilege elevation. The flaw typically manifests when the plugin processes user inputs without proper verification of the requesting user's authorization level, allowing malicious requests to be interpreted as legitimate administrative operations.
The operational impact of CVE-2016-11004 extends beyond simple privilege escalation, potentially enabling attackers to perform a wide range of harmful activities within compromised WordPress environments. Once elevated to administrative privileges, attackers can modify plugin settings, install malicious code, alter user permissions, access sensitive data, and even compromise the entire WordPress installation. This vulnerability particularly affects websites relying on the Monarch plugin for their design and functionality, as it creates an attack vector that can be exploited by threat actors without requiring complex exploitation techniques. The vulnerability also aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078, which covers valid accounts and legitimate credentials, as it allows attackers to leverage existing user accounts to gain elevated privileges.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability center on immediate plugin updates to version 1.2.7 or later, which contain the necessary security patches addressing the access control flaws. System administrators should conduct comprehensive security audits of their WordPress installations to identify all affected plugin versions and ensure complete remediation. Additionally, implementing proper access control measures such as role-based permissions and limiting administrative capabilities to trusted users helps reduce the attack surface. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls and monitoring systems to detect suspicious administrative activities that might indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of keeping WordPress plugins updated and maintaining robust security practices, as outdated components represent one of the most common attack vectors in web application compromises.