EditorsKit <= 1.31.5 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Code Injection
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.31.6
- Affected Plugin
- Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit – EditorsKit
- Affected Version
<= 1.31.5- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-94 · Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
- CVE
CVE-2021-24546
At a glance
CVE-2021-24546 is a high-severity Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability in the Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.31.5. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 1.31.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2021, reported by bl4derunner.
Vulnerability Overview
The Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit – EditorsKit WordPress plugin before 1.31.6 does not sanitise and validate the Conditional Logic of the Custom Visibility settings, allowing users with a role as low contributor to execute Arbitrary PHP code
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 interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
Reaching this weakness in Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit <= 1.31.5 takes an account at Contributor level or above. Code injection means input from a request reaches a language construct that evaluates code, so the attacker's text is executed rather than treated as data.
The injected code runs with the web server's privileges, giving the attacker the same access to the database and filesystem as WordPress itself. For Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit the fix is 1.31.6: builds <= 1.31.5 are affected, anything from 1.31.6 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.31.6, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
An attacker needs Contributor access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit 1.31.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit – EditorsKit
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