WordPress GBK/Big5 Character Set "s" SQL Injection
Secunia Advisory: SA28005
Release Date: 2007-12-11
Last Update: 2007-12-14
Popularity: 5,904 views

Critical:
Less critical
Impact: Manipulation of data
Exposure of sensitive information
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Unpatched

Software:WordPress 2.x

Subscribe: Instant alerts on relevant vulnerabilities

CVE reference:CVE-2007-6318


Description:
Abel Cheung has discovered a vulnerability in WordPress, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct SQL injection attacks.

Input passed to the "s" parameter in index.php (when "exact" and "sentence" are set to "1") is not properly sanitised before being used in SQL queries. This can be exploited to manipulate SQL queries by injecting arbitrary SQL code.

Successful exploitation allows e.g. retrieving administrator password hashes, but requires knowledge of the database table prefix and that "DB_CHARSET" in wp-config.php is set to "GBK" or "Big5".

The vulnerability is confirmed in version 2.3.1 and reported in the previous versions down to and including 2.2.

Solution:
Edit the source code to ensure that input is properly sanitised. Do not use the vulnerable character sets.

Provided and/or discovered by:
Abel Cheung

Changelog:
2007-12-14: Added CVE reference.

Original Advisory:
http://www.abelcheung.org/advisory/20071210-wordpress-charset.txt


Track this Secunia Advisory
Customers of the Secunia Vulnerability Intelligence solutions will automatically receive updates when new information regarding this advisory is released.

Read more about our Vulnerability Intelligence solutions and what they can do for you and your company.

About this Secunia Advisory
Please note: The information that this Secunia Advisory is based on comes from a third party unless stated otherwise.

Secunia collects, validates, and verifies all vulnerability reports issued by security research groups, vendors, and others.
  
Latest Advisories

Send Feedback to Secunia
If you have new information regarding this Secunia advisory or a product in our database, please send it to us using either our web form or email us at vuln@secunia.com.

Ideas, suggestions, and other feedback are most welcome.

Most Popular - 3 Hours

1. Sun Java JDK / JRE Multiple Vulnerabilities // 45 views
2. 3Com Wireless 8760 Access Point HTTP Request Processing Denial of Service // 34 views
3. Zeroboard Two Vulnerabilities // 31 views
4. VLC Media Player Multiple Vulnerabilities // 29 views
5. Zeroboard Multiple Vulnerabilities // 28 views
6. Drupal Content Construction Kit Script Insertion Vulnerabilities // 26 views
7. Cisco ASA and PIX Security Appliances Multiple Vulnerabilities // 26 views
8. Cisco Secure ACS EAP Packet Denial of Service // 26 views
9. Opera Multiple Vulnerabilities // 23 views
10. ClamAV CHM Processing Denial of Service // 22 views