CVE-2020-6166 in Minimal Coming Soon
Summary
by MITRE
A flaw in the WordPress plugin, Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode through 2.15, allows authenticated users with basic access to export settings and change maintenance-mode themes.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/20/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2020-6166 resides within the WordPress plugin Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode version 2.15 and earlier, representing a significant security weakness that undermines the integrity of website maintenance configurations. This flaw specifically affects authenticated users who possess basic access privileges, creating an unauthorized modification vector that could compromise the security posture of websites relying on the plugin for maintenance mode operations. The vulnerability falls under the category of insufficient authorization, where users with minimal privileges can perform actions that should typically require elevated permissions, thereby violating the principle of least privilege that forms a cornerstone of secure system design.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate access control mechanisms within the plugin's administrative interfaces. When authenticated users with basic access attempt to interact with the plugin's settings export functionality, the system fails to properly validate whether the user possesses sufficient privileges to perform such operations. This misconfiguration allows malicious or compromised users with limited access to potentially extract sensitive configuration data and modify critical maintenance mode themes, which could include changing the appearance of maintenance pages to display unauthorized content or redirect users to malicious locations. The flaw essentially creates a backdoor within the plugin's permission structure, enabling privilege escalation through seemingly innocuous administrative functions.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data exposure, as it provides attackers with the capability to manipulate the user experience during maintenance periods. By changing maintenance-mode themes, threat actors can potentially introduce social engineering elements that might deceive website visitors into providing sensitive information or navigating to malicious sites. The settings export functionality, while seemingly benign, could reveal configuration details that aid in further attacks against the WordPress installation or the underlying server infrastructure. This vulnerability particularly affects websites that rely heavily on maintenance mode for security purposes, as it undermines the very protection mechanisms that should safeguard the site during planned or unplanned downtime periods. The risk is amplified when considering that many WordPress installations do not implement additional security layers beyond the core platform, making such plugin-level vulnerabilities more dangerous.
Organizations should prioritize immediate remediation by upgrading to a patched version of the Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode plugin, as this represents the most direct and effective mitigation strategy. System administrators should also implement additional monitoring of plugin-specific administrative activities to detect unauthorized access attempts or configuration changes. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-284, which addresses improper access control, and can be categorized under ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts, as it exploits legitimate user access to perform unauthorized actions. Regular security audits of WordPress plugins should be conducted to identify similar authorization flaws, and organizations should maintain updated inventories of all installed plugins to ensure timely patch management. Implementing network segmentation and additional access controls beyond the WordPress platform can provide defense-in-depth measures that reduce the potential impact of such vulnerabilities. The incident underscores the critical importance of maintaining current plugin versions and conducting regular security assessments of all web application components to prevent unauthorized modifications that could compromise user data and system integrity.