Academist Membership <= 1.1.6 - Authentication Bypass via Account Takeover
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.2
- Affected Plugin
- Academist Membership
- Affected Version
<= 1.1.6- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-288 · Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
- CVE
CVE-2025-1671
At a glance
CVE-2025-1671 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in the Academist Membership WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.1.6. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2025, reported by Tonn.
Vulnerability Overview
The Academist Membership plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.1.6. This is due to the academist_membership_check_facebook_user() function not properly verifying a user's identity prior to authenticating them. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as any user, including site administrators.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
Academist Membership <= 1.1.6 carries this weakness at academist_membership_check_facebook_user(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authentication bypass through an alternate path means the application has a second route to a protected action that skips the checks the primary route performs.
The protection on the main path becomes irrelevant, because the attacker simply uses the route that never asks. For Academist Membership the fix is 1.2: builds <= 1.1.6 are affected, anything from 1.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.2, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Academist Membership 1.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
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