Re: WordPress User Account Information Leak / Secunia Advisory SA23621

[Harry Metcalfe <harry () dxw com>]

There have been many heated debates within the community about this 
issue. Unfortunately, I think a different outcome is unlikely.

WordPress's position is (I think) that usernames aren't secret, and that 
therefore, username enumeration is a non-problem. I think this is 
extremely wrong, but it is what it is.

We solve this problem with a plugin that changes the login messages and 
ensures that invalid usernames will prepopulate the form, as well as 
valid ones.

We also look for [?|&]a=\d in the URL and remove any matches before the 
request hits apache, so that attackers can't run through ?a=1, ?a=2 etc 
looking for redirects to author pages (which include usernames in the URL_.

I've attached the relevant code, but it would need a little work in 
order to run outside our infrastructure. It is a bit fragile, and would 
need to be changed if WordPress's login errors changed - currently, 
there is not a more robust way to do it, as far as we know. Feedback 
welcome if anyone knows of a better way!

Harry
http://security.dxw.com


On 04/07/13 14:22, Ivan Carlos wrote:
> Can't you open a new bt about this issue?
>
> Regards,
>
> Em 04/07/2013 10:16, "Sven Kieske" <svenkieske () gmail com 
> <mailto:svenkieske () gmail com>> escreveu:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     the mentioned User account Enumeration Weakness
>     stated in Advisory https://secunia.com/advisories/23621/
>     still exists in the actual version 3.5.2 .
>
>     The corresponding trac entry for wordpress is closed as
>     "wontfix":
>     https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1129
>
>     Why?
>
>     Maybe, because the trac bug mentions just version 1.5 as affected?
>
>     I can easily reproduce this in version 3.5.2 .
>
>     Please fix this, this bug is 8 years old!
>
>     Kind Regards
>
>     Sven Kieske
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
>     Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
>     Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
> Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
> Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/

Attachment: login_errors.class.php
Description:

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/