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WordPress Ninja Forms Vulnerability Exposes Over a Million Sites

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WordPress Ninja Forms Vulnerability Exposes Over a Million Sites

Today it was disclosed that the popular WordPress contact form called Ninja Forms patched two vulnerabilities0, affecting over 1 million WordPress installations. This represents another in a growing list of REST API related vulnerabilities that are being discovered among many WordPress plugins.

It must be reiterated that there is nothing wrong with the WordPress REST API itself. The problems originate in how WordPress plugins design their interactions with the REST API.

WordPress REST API

The WordPress REST API is an interface that allows plugins to interact with the WordPress core. The REST API allows plugins, themes and other applications to manipulate WordPress content and create interactive functionalities.

This technology extends what the WordPress core can do.

The WordPress core receives data through the REST API interface from the plugins in order to accomplish these new experiences.

However, like any other interact that allows uploading or inputting of data, it is important to “sanitize” what is being input and who is able to make the input, in order to make sure the data is what is expected and designed to received.

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Failure to sanitize the inputs and restrict who is able to input the data can lead to vulnerabilities.

And that’s exactly what happened here.

Permissions Callback Vulnerability

The two vulnerabilities were the result of a single REST API validation issue, specifically in the Permissions Callbacks.

The permissions callback is a part of the authentication process that restricts access to REST API Endpoints to authorized users.

The official WordPress documentation describes an endpoint as a function:

“Endpoints are functions available through the API. This can be things like retrieving the API index, updating a post, or deleting a comment. Endpoints perform a specific function, taking some number of parameters and return data to the client.”

According to the WordPress REST API documentation:

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“Permissions callbacks are extremely important for security with the WordPress REST API.

If you have any private data that should not be displayed publicly, then you need to have permissions callbacks registered for your endpoints.”

Two WordPress Ninja Forms Vulnerabilities

There were two vulnerabilities that were both related to a permissions callback error in implementation.

There is nothing wrong with the WordPress REST API itself but how plugin makers implement it can lead to problems.

These are the two vulnerabilities:

  • Sensitive Information Disclosure
  • Unprotected REST-API to Email Injection

Sensitive Information Disclosure Vulnerability

The Sensitive Information Disclosure vulnerability allowed any registered user, even a subscriber, to export every form that had ever been submitted to the website. That includes all confidential information that someone may have submitted.

The Ninja Forms had a permissions callback that checked if a user was registered but it didn’t check if the user had a proper permission level to execute a bulk export of all forms submitted through the Ninja Forms WordPress plugin.

That failure to check the permission level of the user is what allowed any registered user, including a website subscriber, to execute a bulk export of all submitted forms.

The Unprotected REST-API to Email Injection

This vulnerability was due to the same faulty permissions callback that failed to check permission level of the registered attacker. The vulnerability took advantage of a Ninja Forms functionality that allows website publishers to send bulk email notifications or email confirmations in response to form submissions.

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The Email Injection vulnerability allowed an attacker to use this specific Ninja Forms functionality to blast emails from the vulnerable website to any email address.

This particular vulnerability had the possibility for launching a full site takeover or a phishing campaign against a website’s customers.

According to the security researchers at Wordfence who discovered the vulnerability:

“This vulnerability could easily be used to create a phishing campaign that could trick unsuspecting users into performing unwanted actions by abusing the trust in the domain that was used to send the email.

In addition, a more targeted spear phishing attack could be used to fool a site owner into believing that an email was coming from their own site.

This could be used to trick an administrator into entering their password on a fake login page, or allow an attacker to take advantage of a second vulnerability requiring social engineering, such as Cross-Site Request Forgery or Cross-Site Scripting, which could be used for site takeover.”

Immediate Update to Ninja Forms Recommended

Security researchers are Wordfence recommend that users of the WordPress Ninja Forms plugin update their plugin immediately.

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The vulnerability is rated as a medium level danger, scoring 6.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Citations

Read the Wordfence announcement:

Recently Patched Vulnerabilities in Ninja Forms Plugin Affect Over 1 Million Site Owners

Official Ninja Forms Changelog

Searchenginejournal.com

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FACEBOOK

Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

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Facebook Problem Again

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

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During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.

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We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

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We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

Investors who have invested in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) stock have reaped significant benefits from the company’s robust financial performance over the last five years. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market has been a key driver of the company’s consistent revenue growth and impressive profit margins.

In addition, Google has expanded its operations into related fields such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence. These areas show great promise as future growth drivers, making them increasingly attractive to investors. Notably, Alphabet’s stock price has been rising due to investor interest in the company’s recent initiatives in the fast-developing field of artificial intelligence (AI), adding generative AI features to Gmail and Google Docs.

However, when it comes to predicting the future pricing of a corporation like Google, there are many factors to consider. With this in mind, Finbold turned to the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to suggest a likely pricing range for GOOG stock by 2030. Although the tool was unable to give a definitive price range, it did note the following:

“Over the long term, Google has a track record of strong financial performance and has shown an ability to adapt to changing market conditions. As such, it’s reasonable to expect that Google’s stock price may continue to appreciate over time.”

GOOG stock price prediction

While attempting to estimate the price range of future transactions, it is essential to consider a variety of measures in addition to the AI chat tool, which includes deep learning algorithms and stock market experts.

Finbold collected forecasts provided by CoinPriceForecast, a finance prediction tool that utilizes machine self-learning technology, to anticipate Google stock price by the end of 2030 to compare with ChatGPT’s projection.

According to the most recent long-term estimate, which Finbold obtained on March 20, the price of Google will rise beyond $200 in 2030 and touch $247 by the end of the year, which would indicate a 141% gain from today to the end of the year.

2030 GOOG price prediction: Source: CoinPriceForecast

Google has been assigned a recommendation of ‘strong buy’ by the majority of analysts working on Wall Street for a more near-term time frame. Significantly, 36 analysts of the 48 have recommended a “strong buy,” while seven people have advocated a “buy.” The remaining five analysts had given a ‘hold’ rating.

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1679313229 737 We asked ChatGPT what will be Google GOOG stock price
Wall Street GOOG 12-month price prediction: Source: TradingView

The average price projection for Alphabet stock over the last three months has been $125.32; this objective represents a 22.31% upside from its current price. It’s interesting to note that the maximum price forecast for the next year is $160, representing a gain of 56.16% from the stock’s current price of $102.46.

While the outlook for Google stock may be positive, it’s important to keep in mind that some potential challenges and risks could impact its performance, including competition from ChatGPT itself, which could affect Google’s price.


Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.

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This Apple Watch app brings ChatGPT to your wrist — here’s why you want it

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Apple Watch Series 8

ChatGPT feels like it is everywhere at the moment; the AI-powered tool is rapidly starting to feel like internet connected home devices where you are left wondering if your flower pot really needed Bluetooth. However, after hearing about a new Apple Watch app that brings ChatGPT to your favorite wrist computer, I’m actually convinced this one is worth checking out.

The new app is called watchGPT and as I tipped off already, it gives you access to ChatGPT from your Apple Watch. Now the $10,000 question (or more accurately the $3.99 question, as that is the one-time cost of the app) is why having ChatGPT on your wrist is remotely necessary, so let’s dive into what exactly the app can do.

What can watchGPT do?

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