Research Plan: CVE-2026-1233 - Hardcoded Database Credentials in Text to Speech (TTS) by Mementor

1. Vulnerability Summary

The Text to Speech (TTS) by Mementor plugin (up to version 1.9.8) contains hardcoded, obfuscated MySQL database credentials within the Mementor_TTS_Remote_Telemetry class. These credentials provide access to the vendor's external telemetry server. An unauthenticated attacker can read the plugin's PHP files, extract the obfuscated strings, and decode them to gain unauthorized access to the vendor's remote database.

2. Attack Vector Analysis

• Target File: wp-content/plugins/text-to-speech-tts/includes/class-mementor-tts-remote-telemetry.php
• Vulnerability Type: Information Exposure / Hardcoded Credentials (CWE-798).
• Authentication: None required. The vulnerability is present in the source code of the plugin, which is publicly accessible.
• Preconditions: The plugin must be installed and active (though the file can be read even if the plugin is deactivated if the web server allows reading of PHP source or via a local file inclusion vulnerability). In this specific case, the exposure is considered "Remote" because the credentials allow access to a remote database (the vendor's server).

3. Code Flow

1. The plugin defines a class Mementor_TTS_Remote_Telemetry in includes/class-mementor-tts-remote-telemetry.php.
2. Within this class, private properties are defined containing Base64-encoded (double-encoded) strings:
   • $enc_host: Hostname of the remote MySQL server.
   • $enc_db: Database name.
   • $enc_user: Database username.
   • $enc_pass: Database password.
3. The class uses these credentials in a method (likely named insert_remote_data, though truncated in the source) to connect to the external telemetry server and log usage data.
4. Since PHP source files are readable by anyone with access to the plugin files (or via SVN/GitHub), these "obfuscated" credentials can be reversed.

4. Nonce Acquisition Strategy

No nonce is required.
This vulnerability involves the exposure of sensitive information in static source code. There is no dynamic endpoint to trigger via the web application to "get" the credentials; they are simply extracted from the file content itself.

5. Exploitation Strategy

The exploitation involves retrieving the plugin file and decoding the hardcoded strings.

Step-by-Step Plan:

1. Retrieve File Content: Read the content of wp-content/plugins/text-to-speech-tts/includes/class-mementor-tts-remote-telemetry.php.
2. Extract Encrypted Strings: Locate the following lines:

   private $enc_host = 'YjNOc2J6SXViV1Z0Wlc1MGIzSXVibTg9';
   private $enc_db = 'YldWdFpXNTBiM0pmZEhSemNHeDFaMmx1WkdGMFlRPT0=';
   private $enc_user = 'YldWdFpXNTBiM0pmZEhSemNHeDFaMmx1WkdGMFlYVnpjZz09';
   private $enc_pass = 'UlRWTWJtZHJkbHBoTkZGNldGUkxSRUptWlVZPQ==';
   

3. Decode Logic: The strings are double-Base64 encoded.
   • Perform base64_decode() on the string.
   • Perform base64_decode() again on the result.
4. Verification Payload (Conceptual): Use the decoded credentials to attempt a connection to the host (in a real-world scenario). In this PoC environment, the "exploit" is successfully decoding the credentials.

Example Decoding (Manual Verification):

• Host: YjNOc2J6SXViV1Z0Wlc1MGIzSXVibTg9
  • Decode 1: b3NsbzIubWVudG9yLm8=
  • Decode 2: oslo2.mementor.o (likely oslo2.mementor.no)
• Password: UlRWTWJtZHJkbHBoTkZGNldGUkxSRUptWlVZPQ==
  • Decode 1: RTVMbmdrdlphNFF6WFRLREJmZUY=
  • Decode 2: E5LngkvZa4QzXTKDBfeE

6. Test Data Setup

1. Plugin Installation: Install the text-to-speech-tts plugin version 1.9.8.
2. Activation: Activate the plugin.
3. Verification: Ensure the file wp-content/plugins/text-to-speech-tts/includes/class-mementor-tts-remote-telemetry.php exists and contains the $enc_ variables.

7. Expected Results

• The attacker successfully reads the PHP source file.
• The attacker extracts the four $enc_ strings.
• After double Base64 decoding, the attacker obtains cleartext MySQL credentials:
  • Host: (Decoded string)
  • Database: (Decoded string)
  • User: (Decoded string)
  • Password: (Decoded string)

8. Verification Steps

After performing the extraction via script/agent:

1. Use wp-cli to verify the values currently stored in the class match the expected vulnerable ones:

   wp eval 'require_once "wp-content/plugins/text-to-speech-tts/includes/class-mementor-tts-remote-telemetry.php"; $ref = new ReflectionClass("Mementor_TTS_Remote_Telemetry"); $props = $ref->getDefaultProperties(); echo "Host: " . $props["enc_host"];'
   

2. Run a local PHP script to perform the double decoding and output the cleartext.

9. Alternative Approaches

If the file system is not directly readable via the web server (standard for PHP files), the "vulnerability" is still valid because the plugin is distributed via the WordPress SVN repository. A security researcher or attacker would simply download the plugin ZIP from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/text-to-speech-tts.1.9.8.zip to extract the same credentials.

For the purpose of an automated PoC on a live site, the agent should:

1. Try to use http_request to see if a sensitive file (like readme.txt) is accessible to confirm the plugin version.
2. Use wp_cli (if available in the environment) to cat the content of the target PHP file.
3. If wp_cli is not available, the agent relies on the fact that the credentials are baked into the distributed code.