WP Database Backup <= 7.11 - Authenticated (Administrator+) OS Command Injection via 'wp_db_exclude_table' Parameter
Description
The WP Database Backup – Unlimited Database & Files Backup by Backup for WP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to OS Command Injection in all versions up to and including 7.11 via the wp_db_exclude_table parameter. This is due to the direct concatenation of user-supplied $_POST['wp_db_exclude_table'] values into the mysqldump shell command string in the mysqldump() function of includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.php without wrapping them in escapeshellarg()—every other argument in the same command (DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, host, filename, DB_NAME) is properly escaped, making the exclude-table values the sole exception—and because the only applied filtering, sanitize_text_field() via recursive_sanitize_text_field(), strips HTML tags but leaves shell metacharacters such as ;, |, ` `, and $() intact. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with administrator-level access and above, to execute arbitrary operating system commands on the server, potentially enabling full remote code execution. The injection is stored: malicious values submitted through the plugin settings form are persisted to the WordPress options table via update_option('wp_db_exclude_table') and later retrieved with get_option() and passed unsanitized to shell_exec()` whenever a backup operation runs.
Affected products
1- Range: <=7.11
Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
8- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-database-backup/tags/7.10/includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.phpmitre
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-database-backup/tags/7.10/includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.phpmitre
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-database-backup/tags/7.10/includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.phpmitre
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-database-backup/tags/7.11/includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.phpmitre
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-database-backup/tags/7.11/includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.phpmitre
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-database-backup/tags/7.11/includes/admin/class-wpdb-admin.phpmitre
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changesetmitre
- www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/0a97a217-b00b-4268-a472-8d62ae1d18e3mitre
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