SEO Booster WordPress Plugin SQL Injection Vulnerability in 'orderby' Parameter

A time-based SQL injection vulnerability has been identified in the SEO Booster plugin for WordPress, affecting all versions through 7.3.1. The issue arises from inadequate escaping of user-supplied data in the 'orderby' parameter, allowing authenticated attackers with administrator-level access to inject additional SQL queries. This exploitation could lead to the extraction of sensitive information from the database. Despite the presence of esc_sql() and sanitize_text_field(), these functions do not effectively neutralize SQL keywords, commas, parentheses, or subquery syntax in an unquoted ORDER BY context, leaving the clause fully under attacker control.

Impact

Exploitation of this vulnerability allows for time-based SQL injection, where an attacker can manipulate SQL queries to extract sensitive information from the database.

Remediation

Users are advised to update the SEO Booster plugin to version 7.3.2 or a newer patched version.