Headline
WordPress Tatsu Builder Remote Code Execution
WordPress Tatsu Builder plugin versions prior to 3.3.13 suffer from an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability.
Description: Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution
Affected Plugin: Tatsu Builder
Plugin Slug: tatsu
Plugin Developer: BrandExponents
Affected Versions: < 3.3.13
CVE ID: CVE-2021-25094
CVSS Score: 8.1 (High)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Researcher/s: Vincent Michel (darkpills)
Fully Patched Version: 3.3.13
Indicators of Attack
Most of the attacks we have seen are probing attacks to determine the presence of a vulnerable plugin.
These may appear in your logs with the following URL:
/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=add_custom_font
The vast majority of attacks are the work of just a few IP addresses.
The top 3 attacking IP addresses have each attacked over 1 million sites:
148.251.183.254
176.9.117.218
217.160.145.62
An additional 15 IP addresses have each attacked over 100,000 sites:
65.108.104.19
62.197.136.102
51.38.41.15
31.210.20.170
31.210.20.101
85.202.169.175
85.202.169.71
85.202.169.86
85.202.169.36
85.202.169.83
85.202.169.92
194.233.87.7
2.56.56.203
85.202.169.129
135.181.0.188
Indicators of Compromise
The most common payload we’ve seen is a dropper used to place additional malware located in a randomly-named subfolder of wp-content/uploads/typehub/custom/ such as wp-content/uploads/typehub/custom/vjxfvzcd.
The dropper is typically named .sp3ctra_XO.php and has an MD5 hash of 3708363c5b7bf582f8477b1c82c8cbf8.
Note the dot at the beginning as this indicates a hidden file, which is necessary to exploit the vulnerability as it takes advantage of a race condition.
This file is detected by the Wordfence scanner.
What Should I do?
All Wordfence users with the Wordfence Web Application Firewall active, including Wordfence free customers, are protected against this vulnerability. Nonetheless, if you use the Tatsu Builder plugin, we strongly recommend updating to the latest version available, which is 3.3.13 at the time of this writing. Please note that version 3.3.12 contained a partial patch but did not fully address all issues.
If you know anyone using the Tatsu Builder plugin on their site, we urge you to forward this article to them as this is a large-scale attack and any vulnerable sites that are not updated and not using some form of a Web Application Firewall are at risk of complete site takeover.
If you believe your site has been compromised as a result of this vulnerability or any other vulnerability, we offer Incident Response services via Wordfence Care. If you need your site cleaned immediately, Wordfence Response offers the same service with 24/7/365 availability and a 1-hour response time. Both these products include hands-on support in case you need further assistance.
Related news
A widespread attack is underway to exploit known RCE flaw in Tatsu Builder WordPress plug-in, according to a new report.
The Tatsu WordPress plugin before 3.3.12 add_custom_font action can be used without prior authentication to upload a rogue zip file which is uncompressed under the WordPress's upload directory. By adding a PHP shell with a filename starting with a dot ".", this can bypass extension control implemented in the plugin. Moreover, there is a race condition in the zip extraction process which makes the shell file live long enough on the filesystem to be callable by an attacker.