140,000 BackupBuddy installations at Risk Over File-Read Exploitation

BackupBuddy users are advised to update the plugin as soon as possible, as there are reports of active exploitation of a high severity arbitrary file download/read vulnerability.

BackupBuddy is a popular WordPress backup plugin with around 140,000 active installations.

Wordfence, a WordPress security firm, has revealed that its firewall has blocked more than 4.9 million exploit attempts related to the flaw since abuse was first detected on August 26.

A vulnerability (CVE-2022-31474) with a CVSS score of 7.5 enables unauthenticated attackers to download sensitive files from vulnerable sites.

Most observed attacks appeared to be targeting files such as /etc/passwd, /wp-config.php, .my.cnf, or .accesshash, which could allow for further compromise of victims, according to Wordfence.

The affected versions are 8.5.8.0 through 8.7.4.1, and the issue was resolved in version 8.7.5.