"A Flaw in the Essential 'Addons for Elementor' WordPress Plugin Poses 1M Sites at Risk of Hacking"
The Essential Addons for Elementor WordPress plugin is a compilation of more than 90 creative elements and extensions that enable administrators to enhance the Elementor page-building experience. There are over one million active installations of the plugin. PatchStack researchers discovered that the plugin has an unauthenticated privilege escalation flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-32243, that could enable remote attackers to gain administrator privileges on a website. The vulnerability exists in the password reset functionality of the plugin and affects versions 5.4.0 to 5.7.1. By exploiting this vulnerability, it is possible to reset the password of any user as long as they know their username, thus allowing them to reset the administrator's password and log in to their account. This vulnerability exists because this password reset function does not validate a password reset key before changing the given user's password. Attackers can use the vulnerability to seize control of a website and use it for malicious purposes, such as malware distribution or traffic redirection. This article continues to discuss the unauthenticated privilege escalation flaw in the popular Essential Addons for Elementor WordPress plugin impacting over one million websites.