More than one million websites that run on the WordPress content management application run the risk on being completely hijacked by attackers exploiting critical vulnerability in most versions of a plugin called WP-Slimstat.
Versions prior to the recently released Slimstat 3.9.6 contain a readily guessable key that's used to sign data sent to and from visiting end-user computers, according to a blog post published Tuesday by Web security firm Sucuri. The result is a SQL injection vector that can be used to extract highly sensitive data, including encrypted passwords and the encryption keys used to remotely administer websites.
"If your website uses a vulnerable version of the plugin, you’re at risk," Marc-Alexandre Montpas, a senior vulnerability researcher at Sucuri, wrote. "Successful exploitation of this bug could lead to Blind SQL Injection attacks, which means an attacker could grab sensitive information from your database, including username, (hashed) passwords and, in certain configurations, WordPress Secret Keys (which could result in a total site takeover)."
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