A significant security risk has emerged within the widely used Avada WordPress theme and its companion Avada Builder plugin, as multiple vulnerabilities have been uncovered by Patchstack’s security researcher, Rafie Muhammad. These vulnerabilities pose a grave threat to a substantial number of WordPress websites, potentially leading to breaches and unauthorized access.
Among the security flaws, the Avada Builder plugin is particularly susceptible, revealing an Authenticated SQL Injection vulnerability (CVE-2023-39309) which could grant attackers with authenticated access the ability to breach sensitive data and execute remote code.
Furthermore, an additional vulnerability in the Avada Builder plugin has been identified, involving a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaw (CVE-2023-39306), which could enable unauthenticated attackers to pilfer sensitive information and escalate privileges on affected WordPress sites. The Avada theme itself is not exempt from these threats, with Patchstack’s findings encompassing various vulnerabilities.
Notably, the Contributor+ Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability (CVE-2023-39307) gives Contributors the capability to upload arbitrary files, potentially leading to remote code execution and site compromise.
A corresponding flaw, identified as the Author+ vulnerability (CVE-2023-39312), empowers Authors to upload malicious zip files, thereby introducing the risk of remote code execution and vulnerabilities within the website. Finally, the series of vulnerabilities culminates in the Contributor+ Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability (CVE-2023-39313), where Contributors could initiate requests to internal services on the WordPress server, potentially leading to unauthorized actions or data access within the organization’s framework.
In response to these vulnerabilities, the Avada vendor was informed on July 6, 2023, leading to the release of patched versions on July 11, 2023. Prompt updates are crucial, urging users to update the Avada Builder plugin to version 3.11.2 and the Avada theme to version 7.11.2 in order to uphold website security.
