Lucene search

K
securityvulnsSecurityvulnsSECURITYVULNS:DOC:18864
HistoryJan 16, 2008 - 12:00 a.m.

Exploiting the SpamBam plugin for wordpress

2008-01-1600:00:00
vulners.com
16

The attached exploit demonstrates that the WordPress SpamBam plugin can
be bypassed due to relying on the client for security.

Vulnerable software:
SpamBam (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/spambam/) by Gareth Heyes

Vulnerability:
No matter how hard you ofuscate or encrypt your code, never, under no
circunstances, rely any security aspect on the client. Never!

How the plugin works:
It generates a pseudo-random code both on the client and the server to
generate a key.
On form submit, both key values are checked and they should match to
allow comment insertion.

How the exploit works:
It does nothing but acting as a client. It parses the html, extracts
the javascript, process it to calculate the key and fills the hidden
field with it.

Solution:
There's no fix for this. It's a design flaw.