Hackers are exploiting a essential vulnerability within the “Hunk Companion” plugin to put in and activate different plugins with exploitable flaws immediately from the WordPress.org repository.
By putting in outdated plugins with recognized vulnerabilities with accessible exploits, the attackers can entry a big pool of flaws that result in distant code execution (RCE), SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws, or create backdoor admin accounts.
The exercise was found by WPScan, who reported it to Hunk Companion, with a safety replace addressing the zero-day flaw launched yesterday.
Putting in susceptible plugins
Hunk Companion is a WordPress plugin designed to enrich and improve the performance of themes developed by ThemeHunk, a supplier of customizable WordPress themes, so it is extra of an add-on relatively than a standalone plugin.
Based on WordPress.org stats, Hunk Companion is presently utilized by over 10,000 WordPress websites, so it is a comparatively area of interest software within the house.
The essential vulnerability was found by WPScan researcher Daniel Rodriguez and is tracked as CVE-2024-11972. The flaw permits the arbitrary set up of plugins via unauthenticated POST requests.
The difficulty impacts all variations of Hunk Companion earlier than the most recent 1.9.0, launched yesterday, which addressed the issue.
Whereas investigating a WordPress web site an infection, WPScan found lively exploitation of CVE-2024-11972 to put in a susceptible model of WP Question Console.
That is an obscure plugin final up to date over 7 years in the past, which the hackers exploited to execute malicious PHP code on the focused websites, leveraging the zero-day RCE flaw CVE-2024-50498.
“Within the infections we have analyzed, attackers use the RCE to write down a PHP dropper to the location’s root listing,” explains WPScan.
“This dropper permits continued unauthenticated uploads by way of GET requests, enabling persistent backdoor entry to the location.”
It is value noting that Hunk Companion mounted an identical flaw in model 1.8.5, which was tracked underneath CVE-2024-9707, however apparently, the patch wasn’t sufficient, and methods to bypass it exist.
Given the flaw’s severity and its lively exploitation standing, customers of Hunk Companion are beneficial to replace to 1.9.0 as quickly as potential.
On the time of writing, the most recent model has been downloaded roughly 1,800 occasions, so no less than eight thousand web sites stay susceptible to exploitation.
