Breaking News WP <= 1.3 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Local File Inclusion/Read

Summary

The Breaking News WP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File Inclusion in all versions up to, and including, 1.3. This is due to the brnwp_ajax_form AJAX endpoint lacking both authorization checks and CSRF verification, combined with insufficient path validation when the brnwp_theme option value is passed directly to an include() statement in the brnwp_show_breaking_news_wp() shortcode handler. While sanitize_text_field() is applied to user input, it does not strip directory traversal sequences (../). This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to overwrite the brnwp_theme option with a directory traversal payload (e.g., ../../../../etc/passwd) and subsequently trigger file inclusion of arbitrary files on the server when the shortcode is rendered.