Vulnerability Found in Yoast’s Google Analytics WordPress Plugin
Posted on March 21, 2015 by Kara Dunlap in Security
Yoast has released a new version of its popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress to address a persistent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could have been exploited to execute arbitrary code.
Google Analytics by Yoast has been downloaded nearly 7 million times. The application allows WordPress administrators to monitor website traffic by connecting the plugin to their Google Analytics account.
The vulnerability was identified by Jouko Pynnonen, the CEO of Finland-based IT company Klikki Oy. Earlier this month, the expert reported identifying several vulnerabilities in the WPML premium WordPress plugin.
According to the researcher, an attacker can leverage a flaw in Google Analytics by Yoast to store arbitrary code in a targeted administrator’s WordPress dashboard. The code is executed as soon as the administrator opens the plugin’s settings panel.
The attack involves two security bugs. First, there is an access control flaw that allows an unauthenticated attacker to connect the plugin installed on the targeted website to his own Google Analytics account by overwriting existing OAuth2 credentials.
The second stage of the attack relies on the fact that the plugin renders an HTML dropdown menu based on data from Google Analytics. Because this data is not sanitized, an attacker can enter malicious code in the Google Analytics account and it gets executed when the targeted administrator views the plugin’s settings panel.
“Under default WordPress configuration, a malicious user can exploit this flaw to execute arbitrary server-side PHP code via the plugin or theme editors,” Pynnonen said in an advisory. “Alternatively the attacker could change the administrator’s password, create new administrator accounts, or do whatever else the currently logged-in administrator can do on the target site.”
The security issues have been addressed with the release of Google Analytics by Yoast version 5.3.3. The update also fixes a flaw that allowed administrators to launch XSS attacks against other administrators. This vulnerability was publicly disclosed back in February by Kaustubh G. Padwad and Rohit Kumar.
This isn’t the first time someone finds a vulnerability in a plugin from Yoast. Last week, UK-based researcher Ryan Dewhurst uncovered a blind SQL injection vulnerability in WordPress SEO by Yoast.
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Google to Sunset SHA-1 Crypto Hash Algorithm
Posted on September 9, 2014 by Kara Dunlap in Security
Google has announced plans to begin sunsetting the SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm in the upcoming version of its Chrome browser.
In Chrome 39, which is slated to come in November, HTTPS sites whose certificates use SHA-1 and are valid past January 1, 2017, will no longer appear to be fully trustworthy in Chrome’s user interface.
“The SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm has been known to be considerably weaker than it was designed to be since at least 2005 — 9 years ago,” blogged Google’s Chris Palmer and Ryan Sleevi. “Collision attacks against SHA-1 are too affordable for us to consider it safe for the public web PKI. We can only expect that attacks will get cheaper.”
The use SHA-1 has been deprecated since 2011, when the CA/Browser Forum published their Baseline Requirements for SSL, Palmer and Sleevi noted. The requirements recommended that all CAs [certificate authorities] move away from SHA-1 as soon as possible.
“We have seen this type of weakness turn into a practical attack before, with the MD5 hash algorithm,” the two explained. “We need to ensure that by the time an attack against SHA-1 is demonstrated publicly, the web has already moved away from it. Unfortunately, this can be quite challenging. For example, when Chrome disabled MD5, a number of enterprises, schools, and small businesses were affected when their proxy software — from leading vendors — continued to use the insecure algorithms, and were left scrambling for updates. Users who used personal firewall software were also affected.”
“We plan to surface, in the HTTPS security indicator in Chrome, the fact that SHA-1 does not meet its design guarantee,” they wrote. “We are taking a measured approach, gradually ratcheting down the security indicator and gradually moving the timetable up.”
In Chrome 40, sites with end-entity certificates that expire between June 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2016, and include a SHA-1-based signature as part of the certificate chain will be treated as “secure, but with minor errors.” Sites with end-entity certificates that expire on or after Jan. 1, 2017, and include a SHA-1-based signature as part of the certificate chain will be considered “neutral, lacking security.”
The current visual display for “neutral, lacking security” is a blank page icon, and is used in other situations, such as HTTP, the two stated.
In Chrome 41, sites with end-entity certificates that expire between the start of 2016 and Dec. 31, 2016, that include a SHA-1-based signature as part of the certificate chain will be treated as “secure, but with minor errors.” Sites with end-entity certificates that expire on or after Jan. 1, 2017, and include a SHA-1-based signature as part of the certificate chain meanwhile will be treated as “affirmatively insecure.” Subresources from such domain will be treated as “active mixed content,” according to Google.
Brian Prince is a Contributing Writer for SecurityWeek.
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Google Acquires Spider.io to Help Combat Online Ad Fraud
Posted on February 21, 2014 by Kara Dunlap in Security
Google announced on Friday it has acquired UK startup spider.io for its technology used in the fight against online advertising fraud.
According to Google, the spider.io team has spent the past 3 years building a “world-class ad fraud fighting operation” that the search giant plans to integrate into its products.
“By including spider.io’s fraud-fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem,” Neal Mohan, VP, Display Advertising at Google’s DoubleClick unit, wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition.
“Our immediate priority is to include their fraud detection technology in our video and display ads products, where they will complement our existing efforts,” Mohan continued. “Over the long term, our goal is to improve the metrics that advertisers and publishers use to determine the value of digital media and give all parties a clearer, cleaner picture of what campaigns and media are truly delivering strong results. Also, by including spider.io’s fraud fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem.”
Terms of the acquistion were not disclosed.
Earlier this month, Google acquired security startup SlickLogin, an Israeli company working on innovative authentication solutions that leverage mobile and audio technology.
Related: Flashback Trojan Targets Big Profits Through Google Ads Fraud Scheme
Related: ‘One-Click’ Scammers Changing Tactics: Symantec
Managing Editor, SecurityWeek.
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