CVE-2024-2047

Description

The ElementsKit Elementor addons plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 3.0.6 via the render_raw function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to include and execute arbitrary files on the server, allowing the execution of any PHP code in those files. This can be used to bypass access controls, obtain sensitive data, or achieve code execution in cases where images and other “safe” file types can be uploaded and included.

Code

Vulnerable code: https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/elementskit-lite/trunk/widgets/testimonial/testimonial.php?rev=3050248

Analysis

Right at the bottom on line 2458, we see $style being concatenated to a file path directly. We can add ../ to $style to obtain path traversal


2455	                $style = isset($ekit_testimonial_style) ? sanitize_text_field($ekit_testimonial_style) : 'default';
2456	
2457	                if (is_array($testimonials) && !empty($testimonials)) {
2458	                        require Handler::get_dir() . 'style/' . $style . '.php';
2459	                }
2460	    }

The Fix

plugins.trac.wordpress.org

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/elementskit-lite/trunk/widgets/testimonial/testimonial.php?rev=3054091

$style is now checked to see if it’s one of the existing styles before appending to the file path


2456	                $styles = [
2457	                        'style1',
2458	                        'style2',
2459	                        'style3',
2460	                        'style4',
2461	                        'style5',
2462	                        'style6',
2463	                ];
2464	
2465	                if (in_array($style, $styles) && is_array($testimonials) && !empty($testimonials)) {
2466	                        require Handler::get_dir() . 'style/' . $style . '.php';
2467	                }

Recreation

Install WordPress locally

Download the vulnerable plugin and install it

Add the testimonial widget to the page

Edit the style by toggling Use Fixed Height

Intercept the request in BurpSuite and we see the data for ekit_testimonial_style is being sent over with a value style1

We create a dummy file in the root folder called a.php with the following contents


<?php echo system('whoami') ?>

Now we modify the value of ekit_testimonial_style to ../../../a.php and see the PHP file being executed, and returns the host name of our machine

Fixed Version

After we update the plugin to it’s latest version and send the traffic again, there is no more directory traversal because ../../../a.php is not in the array

Also, they kinda fixed type juggling in PHP 8, so in_array is pretty safe now!