phpCAS authentication library < 1.6.0 — Service Hostname Discovery Exploitation

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Authorizer.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.

What to do

1. Update to version 1.6.0, or a newer patched version
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch Authorizer to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Filip Hejsek.

The phpCAS library uses HTTP headers to determine the service URL used to validate tickets. This allows an attacker to control the host header and use a valid ticket granted for any authorized service in the same SSO realm (CAS server) to authenticate to the service protected by phpCAS. Depending on the settings of the CAS server service registry in worst case this may be any other service URL (if the allowed URLs are configured to "^(https)://.*") or may be strictly limited to known and authorized services in the same SSO federation if proper URL service validation is applied. This vulnerability may allow an attacker to gain access to a victim's account on a vulnerable CASified service without victim's knowledge, when the victim visits attacker's website while being logged in to the same CAS server. WordPress plugins containing a vulnerable copy of this library may or may not be vulnerable to exploitation.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

• Advisorywordfence.com

Related CVEs

Timeline

1. Nov 1, 2022

   CVE published

   Severity high, CVSS 8.0

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated