Simple Ads Manager WordPress plugin unauthenticated PHP Object injection vulnerability

Abstract

A PHP Object injection vulnerability was found in the Simple Ads Manager WordPress plugin. The unauthenticated PHP Object injection vulnerability can be used by an unautenthicated user to instantiate arbitrary PHP Objects. This issue can potentially result in arbitrary code execution, but this has not been confirmed.

OVE ID

OVE-20160712-0041

Tested versions

This issue was succesfully tested on the Simple Ads Manager WordPress plugin version 2.9.8.125.

Fix

There is currently no fix available.

Introduction

The Simple Ads Manager WordPress Plugin is an easy to use plugin providing a flexible logic of displaying advertisements. A PHP Object injection vulnerability was found in Simple Ads Manager WordPress plugin. The unauthenticated PHP Object injection vulnerability can be used by an unautenthicated user to instantiate arbitrary PHP Objects.

Details

This issue is possible due to two unsafe calls to unserialize() in the sam-ajax-loader.php file. The input is taken directly from the POST request as can be seen in the following code fragment:

sam-ajax-loader.php:

if ( in_array( $action, $allowed_actions ) ) {
	switch ( $action ) {
		case 'sam_ajax_load_place':
			echo json_encode( array( 'success' => false, 'error' => 'Deprecated...' ) );
			break;
	
		case 'sam_ajax_load_ads':
			if ( ( isset( $_POST['ads'] ) && is_array( $_POST['ads'] ) ) && isset( $_POST['wc'] ) ) {
				$clauses = **unserialize( base64_decode( $_POST['wc'] ) )**;

This issue can potentially result in arbitrary code execution, but this has not been confirmed.