WordPress Security Plugin Caught Logging Plaintext Passwords
The All-In-One Security (AIOS) WordPress plugin was found to be logging plaintext passwords from login attempts.
Installed on more than one million WordPress sites, the security and firewall plugin was designed to prevent cyberattacks such as brute-force attempts, warn when the default admin username is used for login, prevent bot attacks, log user activity, and eliminate comment spam.
It was discovered that AIOS version 5.1.9 writes plaintext passwords from login attempts to the database, which essentially provides any privileged user with access to the login credentials of all other administrator users.
The issue was identified roughly two weeks ago, when users started complaining about the insecure design flaw on the plugin’s support forums.
Earlier this week, the Updraft team maintaining the plugin released AIOS version 5.2.0 to address the issue and remove the logged passwords from the database.
However, plugin users have been complaining about the update breaking sites and not removing the password logs. AIOS version 5.2.1 was released on Wednesday to address these issues, but some users claim sites are still broken.
According to Patchstack CEO Oliver Sild, however, the AIOS maintainers should have also warned users of the password logging, so that they could reset their credentials if the same combinations were used on multiple sites, as this creates an attack surface for threat actors.
“So far the developers haven’t even told the users to change all passwords. Due to the scale, we will 100% see hackers harvest the credentials from the logs of compromised sites that run (or has run) this plugin,” Sild tweeted.
All-In-One Security (AIOS) users are advised to update their installations as soon as possible. Based on WordPress statistics, hundreds of thousands of websites are still running a vulnerable version of the plugin.
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