CVE-2023-28121
Published: 12 April 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-28121 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication (CWE-287) vulnerability in Automattic Woocommerce Payments. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 0.1% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
The vulnerability CVE-2023-28121 is an improper authentication flaw (CWE-287) in the WooCommerce Payments plugin for WordPress, affecting all versions through 5.6.1. It carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.8 and permits an unauthenticated remote attacker to issue requests that impersonate privileged users such as administrators.
An attacker can exploit the issue over the network without credentials or user interaction to obtain full administrative access on any site running the vulnerable plugin, resulting in complete control over the WordPress installation.
Public advisories and technical analyses published by the WooCommerce team and independent researchers detail the flaw and are available at the referenced URLs, including guidance on applying the corrective update.
The associated EPSS score stands at 0.9367 with no reported change from its peak value.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-31832
Vulnerability details
An issue in WooCommerce Payments plugin for WordPress (versions 5.6.1 and lower) allows an unauthenticated attacker to send requests on behalf of an elevated user, like administrator. This allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to gain admin access on a site…
more
that has the affected version of the plugin activated.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Detects unauthorized successful logons resulting from improper authentication implementations.
Documented procedures ensure personnel are trained on authentication mechanisms, tangibly lowering the risk of improper authentication being exploited.
Security awareness training instructs users on secure authentication practices and avoiding credential compromise.
Training on authentication mechanisms and best practices decreases the occurrence of improper authentication.
Non-repudiation requires strong authentication mechanisms to irrefutably attribute performed actions to specific individuals or processes.
Session content review can reveal authentication bypasses or failures in session establishment.
Review of authentication-related audit records can detect improper authentication mechanisms or bypasses.
Assessments check authentication mechanisms for correct implementation and effectiveness, reducing successful authentication bypass attempts.