CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-35948 — An issue was discovered in the XCloner Backup and Restore plugin before 4.2.13 for WordPress

Critical CVSS 9.9

An issue was discovered in the XCloner Backup and Restore plugin before 4.2.13 for WordPress. It gave authenticated attackers the ability to modify arbitrary files, including PHP files. Doing so would allow an attacker to achieve remote code execution. The xcloner_restore.php write_file_action could overwrite wp-config.php, for example. Alternatively, an attacker could create an exploit chain to obtain a database dump.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.9 (3.1)
Published
2021-01-01
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
php/wordpress
Weaknesses
CWE-863

Affected products

  • xcloner / xcloner

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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