CVE-2018-10233 in User Profile
Summary
by MITRE
The User Profile & Membership plugin before 2.0.7 for WordPress has no mitigations implemented against cross site request forgery attacks. This is a structural finding throughout the entire plugin.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/30/2020
The CVE-2018-10233 vulnerability represents a critical security flaw in the User Profile & Membership plugin for WordPress, affecting versions prior to 2.0.7. This vulnerability stems from the complete absence of cross site request forgery (CSRF) protection mechanisms within the plugin's architecture, creating a fundamental structural weakness that compromises user security. The issue manifests as a lack of anti-CSRF tokens or validation mechanisms in the plugin's form submissions and administrative actions, leaving users and administrators exposed to malicious request manipulation attacks.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability occurs at the core plugin level where user profile modifications, membership management functions, and administrative operations lack proper CSRF protection measures. When users interact with the plugin's interface, particularly during profile updates, membership changes, or administrative actions, the requests are not validated against legitimate user sessions or authenticated contexts. This structural deficiency allows attackers to craft malicious requests that can be executed on behalf of authenticated users without their knowledge or consent, leveraging the trust relationship between the user's browser and the WordPress installation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data manipulation, as it provides attackers with the ability to perform unauthorized administrative actions within the WordPress environment. Attackers can exploit this weakness to modify user profiles, alter membership status, change user permissions, or even gain elevated privileges within the system. The vulnerability's widespread nature across the entire plugin architecture means that every endpoint and function relying on user authentication becomes a potential attack surface, making it particularly dangerous for sites with multiple users or administrative capabilities.
This vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1078.004 for Valid Accounts and T1548.002 for Account Manipulation, demonstrating how the lack of CSRF protection enables adversaries to leverage legitimate user credentials for unauthorized actions. The absence of CSRF protection in the plugin's design represents a failure to implement basic security controls that should be fundamental to any web application handling user data or administrative functions. Organizations running affected versions of the plugin face significant risk of unauthorized access, data compromise, and potential full system exploitation if attackers successfully leverage this vulnerability.
The recommended mitigation strategy involves immediate upgrading to version 2.0.7 or later of the User Profile & Membership plugin, which implements proper CSRF token validation and request verification mechanisms. Additionally, administrators should implement additional security measures such as role-based access controls, regular security audits, and monitoring for unauthorized administrative actions. The vulnerability highlights the importance of implementing defense-in-depth strategies and demonstrates how a single architectural flaw can compromise entire user management systems within WordPress installations.