CVE-2022-4016 in Booster for WooCommerce Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 12/12/2022
The Booster for WooCommerce WordPress plugin before 5.6.7, Booster Plus for WooCommerce WordPress plugin before 5.6.6, Booster Elite for WooCommerce WordPress plugin before 1.1.8 does not properly check for CSRF when creating and deleting Customer roles, allowing attackers to make logged admins create and delete arbitrary custom roles via CSRF attacks
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/07/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-4016 affects multiple variants of the Booster for WooCommerce WordPress plugin ecosystem, specifically targeting versions prior to 5.6.7 for the standard plugin, 5.6.6 for Booster Plus, and 1.1.8 for Booster Elite. This issue represents a critical security flaw that undermines the integrity of WordPress administrative functions by failing to implement proper Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection mechanisms. The vulnerability resides within the plugin's handling of customer role management operations, where the absence of adequate CSRF tokens allows unauthorized actors to manipulate administrative functions through maliciously crafted requests.
The technical flaw stems from the plugin's insufficient validation of request origins and lack of proper anti-CSRF token implementation when processing customer role creation and deletion operations. When administrators perform these actions within the WordPress admin interface, the plugin should verify that requests originate from legitimate sources by checking for valid CSRF tokens. However, the affected versions fail to validate these tokens, enabling attackers to construct malicious web pages or emails that, when clicked by authenticated administrators, automatically execute unauthorized role management operations. This weakness directly violates fundamental web security principles and represents a classic CSRF vulnerability as categorized under CWE-352.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and far-reaching, as it allows attackers to escalate privileges and potentially gain unauthorized access to administrative functions within the WordPress environment. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability can create arbitrary customer roles with elevated permissions, potentially granting themselves or malicious actors access to sensitive administrative features. Additionally, the ability to delete existing customer roles can disrupt normal business operations and remove legitimate access controls. This vulnerability particularly affects e-commerce environments where WooCommerce plugins are extensively used, as it provides attackers with a pathway to manipulate user access controls and potentially compromise the entire WordPress installation.
The exploitability of this vulnerability is enhanced by the fact that it requires no authentication from the attacker beyond the ability to trick an authenticated administrator into clicking a malicious link or visiting a compromised website. This makes the attack surface particularly broad, as administrators frequently interact with various web resources and may inadvertently trigger the malicious requests. The vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078.004 which covers valid accounts and T1548.002 which involves privilege escalation through abuse of credentials, making it a significant threat in the context of WordPress security. Organizations using affected plugin versions face increased risk of unauthorized access, data manipulation, and potential complete system compromise.
Mitigation strategies should immediately involve updating all affected plugin versions to their patched releases, with the standard Booster plugin requiring version 5.6.7 or later, Booster Plus requiring 5.6.6 or later, and Booster Elite requiring 1.1.8 or later. Administrators should also implement additional security measures including regular security audits, monitoring of user role changes, and implementing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to reduce the impact of potential CSRF attacks. Network-level protections such as Web Application Firewalls (WAF) can provide additional layers of defense, while security teams should closely monitor for any signs of exploitation attempts. The vulnerability serves as a reminder of the critical importance of CSRF protection in web applications and the necessity of regular security updates for third-party plugins in WordPress environments.