Latest update has major flaw… false positives!

  • Resolved djenk

    (@djenk)


    4 years, 8 months ago

    The latest update is showing that there are tables that are not being used, giving the option to remove them. HOWEVER, they are being used. In this case, the tables are being used for Gravity Forms, but WP Optimize is saying they belong to “simplelender-by-umatidocs-com”, this plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/simplelender-by-umatidocs-com/

    But removing those tables removes Gravity Form tables that are being used, and all of my forms and all form entries were deleted since I didn’t notice the incorrect “belongs to”.

    I was able to restore a backup, but this is a big deal! I’m disabling Wp Optimize on all my sites until this is fixed. I’m just hoping no one on my team has removed false positive tables on any of our 130+ WPress sites, almost all of which have WP Optimize installed.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

  • Hi there,

    Thank you for your report, and sorry for the inconvenience.

    The list of tables and plugins currently only contains plugins from the www.ads-software.com repository, as we can’t collect information about other third party repositories and premium plugins.

    But we are looking at ways to improve this feature and make it safer.

    Best wishes,
    Marc

    Thread Starter djenk

    (@djenk)

    Understood, but your plugin is saying those tables weren’t being used, and that’s not the case at all. So your plugin indicates that those tables can be removed, and doing so removes valuable information from the site.

    This wasn’t an issue before your recent plugin update. I’ve been using your plugin for years on sites that use Gravity Forms and never had this issue. I recommend you look at what changed rather than brushing it off as a feature that needs improving. It’s not. It’s a bug that should be fixed.

    In the meantime, I’m disabling your plugin on our sites.

    EE

    (@ericaeide)

    Same issue here. Site has NEVER had any simplelender plugins on it.

    We’re having the same issue. Please fix this.

    Thread Starter djenk

    (@djenk)

    Here’s a screenshot on yet another site to show you exactly what I’m talking about. The site has Gravity Forms installed and activated, and your plugin is saying these tables are being used by a plugin that is not installed. The plugin being identified has NEVER been on this or any of my other sites (SimpleLender).

    Your plugin is showing the option to remove the tables. Doing so removes all Gravity Forms information, including forms and entries. Not good!

    https://imahalfwit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-06-at-9.24.33-AM.png

    Yes! Thank goodness I found this thread. I’m baffled as to what this strange plugin is doing? This feels like it’s a code injection of that random outdated plugin.

    Definitely a very big deal.

    I removed those entries and yes, it removed all Gravity Forms Data!!! Huge deal. Thank the old Gods and the new that I had made a backup.

    What gives? Can anyone shed any light on this? I want to remove these random tables but doing so deletes Gravity Forms.

    Thread Starter djenk

    (@djenk)

    I don’t think those tables are random and you definitely don’t want to remove them. They actually belong to Gravity Forms and are being used to store data, but WP Optimize is identifying them as that Simple Lender plugin… and since the Simple Lender plugin isn’t active on your site, WP Optimize is saying you can remove them.

    I can verify without a doubt that the culprit is the latest version of WP Optimize. I have sights running the previous version of WP Optimize along with Gravity Forms without this issue. But as soon as you update to the latest version of WP Optimize, it will misidentify these tables.

    Hi there,

    We’re have a fix for this, but we have other code in the release that needs more testing before.

    The latest version of WP-Optimize includes an updated list of the tables used by plugins on the WP repository. And it’s likely that the plugin simplelender-by-umatidocs-com copied some code from Gravityforms, including the database tables structure. That plugin has been closed by the plugin review team, and it could be in relation to that.

    Marc.

    Great thanks @marcusig appreciate you replying. So – nothing to worry about with malware being injected into the plugin? Just a coding oversight?

    @conciseac No it’s not a malware issue. It’s the folks at simplelender-by-umatidocs-com who copied the table structure used by GravityForms. And we use an API to collect the database tables created by the plugins on the WP repository, which is why the tables are attributed to this plugin.

    The thing I find more alarming is why is WP-Optimize making reference to some sort of lender plugin: Belongs to: simplelender-by-umatidocs-com [not installed]

    Now I want to know if GF is using any or part of this 3rd party code. I happen to do some work in the lender space so when I look at umatidocs-com I’m wondering if there is anything malicious going on that I need to investigate further.

    I did delete tables on a couple of sites before I figured out that all of my GF tables were being removed, but for now, I’ll simply overlook the notification that I can remove….I need to know why WP-Optimize is referencing that specific 3rd party app.

    NOTE: I saw the response further up thread, but did not want to edit my original post. Hopefully GF can shed some light on this as well so we are all assured nothing malicious is going with GF code.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by keywordguy.

    Eek this freaked us out to see the reference to Simplelender plugin, thought we’d been hacked! Hope you can release the fix, thanks heaps

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • The topic ‘Latest update has major flaw… false positives!’ is closed to new replies.