Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.9.2
- Affected Plugin
- BuddyPress
- Affected Version
< 1.9.2- CVSS
- 6.5Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
- CVE
CVE-2014-1889
At a glance
CVE-2014-1889 is a medium-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the BuddyPress WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.9.2. It carries a CVSS score of 6.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high integrity impact). The issue is fixed in version 1.9.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2014, reported by Pietro Oliva.
Vulnerability Overview
The Group creation process in the Buddypress plugin before 1.9.2 for WordPress allows remote authenticated users to gain control of arbitrary groups by leveraging a missing permissions check. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to modify the name, description, avatar and settings of groups.
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 integrity.
CWE-287: Improper Authentication
Reaching this weakness in BuddyPress < 1.9.2 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.
An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For BuddyPress the fix is 1.9.2: builds < 1.9.2 are affected, anything from 1.9.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.9.2, 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: BuddyPress 1.9.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in BuddyPress
- 10.0BuddyPress 2.0 - 2.7.3 Arbitrary File Deletion
- 9.8BuddyPress <= 9.0.0 SQL Injection
- 9.8CVE-2012-2109: BuddyPress - 1.5-1.5.4 SQL Injection
CVE-2012-2109 - 8.8BuddyPress <= 9.0.0 Information Disclosure via REST API
- 8.8BuddyPress <= 7.2.1 Insufficient Privilege De-escalation
- 8.8CVE-2021-21389: BuddyPress 5.0.0-7.2.0 Privilege Escalation
CVE-2021-21389 - 8.8BuddyPress <= 2.3.4 Privilege Escalation
- 8.1CVE-2024-10011: BuddyPress <= 14.1.0 Directory Traversal
CVE-2024-10011
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C