dbcve.org
Hide My Wp GhostWordPress extension · Wpplugins

CVE-2022-4537

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-05-09
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 5.0.18 or later.
See remediation →
74/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The Hide My WP Ghost – Security Plugin plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to IP Address Spoofing in versions up to, and including, 5.0.18. This is due to insufficient restrictions on where the IP Address information is being retrieved for request logging and login restrictions. Attackers can supply the X-Forwarded-For header with with a different IP Address that will be logged and can be used to bypass settings that may have blocked out an IP address from logging in.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

The Hide My WP Ghost plugin for WordPress trusts the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header to determine client IP addresses for logging and login restrictions. Since this header can be arbitrarily set by attackers, malicious actors can spoof their source IP address to bypass IP-based access controls and obscure their activity in logs.

MitigationImplement server-side IP validation by trusting only the remote address (REMOTE_ADDR) from the server, or if a reverse proxy is confirmed, validate that X-Forwarded-For comes only from trusted proxies and use the last untrusted address in the chain.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Hide My Wp GhostWordPress extension
Affected:<= 5.0.18

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check plugin version
    Locate the installed version of Hide My WP Ghost in WordPress admin under Plugins > Hide My WP Ghost, or inspect the plugin's main PHP file header for the Version field. Compare this to the affected range.
    Affected if installed version is 5.0.18 or lower
  2. Verify IP-based features are in use
    Access the Hide My WP Ghost settings panel in WordPress admin and examine whether login protection, IP blocking, country blocking, or IP-based access restrictions are enabled.
    Affected if any IP-based access control features are active in the plugin settings
  3. Confirm X-Forwarded-For header handling
    Inspect the plugin configuration or source code to determine whether the plugin uses the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header to determine client IP addresses for logging or access control purposes.
    Affected if the plugin is configured to trust and use the X-Forwarded-For header for IP-based decisions

You are affected if you have Hide My WP Ghost version 5.0.18 or lower with IP-based access controls or logging features enabled that rely on the X-Forwarded-For header for IP determination.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 5.0.18
Interim mitigation

Implement server-side IP validation by trusting only the remote address (REMOTE_ADDR) from the server, or if a reverse proxy is confirmed, validate that X-Forwarded-For comes only from trusted proxies and use the last untrusted address in the chain.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

5.0.19 or latest stable release

  1. 1. Navigate to the WordPress admin dashboard for the affected site
  2. 2. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins
  3. 3. Find 'Hide My WP Ghost' in the plugin list
  4. 4. If an update is available, click 'Update Now' to update the plugin to the latest version
  5. 5. Verify the plugin was updated to version 5.0.19 or higher
  6. 6. Test that the IP-based login restrictions and logging functionality work correctly after the update

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Hide My Wp Ghost Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,490
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,984.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-4537 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-4537 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data