Gutenberg Template Library Plugin Bugs Affected 1+ Million WordPress Sites

Researchers spotted numerous security bugs in the Gutenberg Template Library & Redux Framework plugin that threatened over 1 million sites. Exploiting the vulnerabilities could allow an adversary access to sensitive site data and consequently install arbitrary plugins.

Gutenberg Template Library Plugin Bugs

Wordfence recently shared details about vulnerabilities in the Gutenberg Template Library & Redux Framework plugin.

It’s a useful WordPress plugin from Redux.io bearing a huge library of Gutenberg templates. The plugin currently boasts over 1 million active installations. That means the vulnerabilities potentially risked over a million WordPress sites.

As elaborated in their post, the first of these bugs (CVE-2021-38312) affected the REST API Endpoints of the Gutenberg Template Library plugin. The vulnerability existed since the endpoints only checked edit_posts capability with the user account.

While the REST API Endpoints registered under the redux/v1/templates/ REST Route used a permission_callback to verify a user’s permissions, this callback only checked whether or not the user sending the request had the edit_posts capability.

Hence, users with lower privileges could install block templates or even plugins from the WordPress repository via the redux/v1/templates/plugin-install endpoint. Besides, the user could also delete posts or pages on the website using redux/v1/templates/delete_saved_block endpoint.

The second vulnerability (CVE-2021-38314) existed as the plugin allowed an unauthenticated adversary to view sensitive site data.

This $support_hash AJAX action, which was also available to unauthenticated users, called the support_args function in redux-core/inc/classes/class-redux-helpers.php, which returned potentially sensitive information such as the PHP version, active plugins on the site and their versions, and an unsalted md5 hash of the site’s AUTH_KEY and SECURE_AUTH_KEY.

Developers Fixed The Bugs

Wordfence reached out to the plugin developers to report the bugs. Consequently, the vendors patched the bugs with the release of plugin version 4.2.13.

Nonetheless, the current plugin version is 4.2.14. Hence, all users should update their WordPress sites to this version to remain safe from potential cyber threats.