Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 5.11.1
- Affected Version
<= 5.11- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2021-24178
At a glance
CVE-2021-24178 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Business Directory Plugin WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.11. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 5.11.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2021, reported by 0xB9.
Vulnerability Overview
The Business Directory Plugin – Easy Listing Directories for WordPress WordPress plugin before 5.11.1 suffered from Cross-Site Request Forgery issues, allowing an attacker to make a logged in administrator add, edit or delete form fields, which could also lead to Stored Cross-Site Scripting issues.
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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in Business Directory Plugin <= 5.11 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.
An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For Business Directory Plugin the fix is 5.11.1: builds <= 5.11 are affected, anything from 5.11.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 5.11.1, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Business Directory Plugin: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Business Directory Plugin 5.11.1 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in Business Directory Plugin – Easy Listing & Member Directories for WordPress
- 9.8CVE-2024-4443: Business Directory Plugin SQL Injection
CVE-2024-4443 - 7.5CVE-2026-2576: Business Directory Plugin <= 6.4.21 SQL Injection
CVE-2026-2576 - 7.4CVE-2023-5527: Business Directory Plugin <= 6.4.3 CSV Injection
CVE-2023-5527 - 7.2CVE-2026-28004: Business Directory <= 6.4.25 Stored XSS
CVE-2026-28004 - 7.2CVE-2026-57326: Business Directory Plugin Stored XSS
CVE-2026-57326 - 7.2CVE-2021-24248: Business Directory Plugin <= 5.11 PHP4 Upload
CVE-2021-24248 - 6.4CVE-2026-61959: Business Directory Plugin Stored XSS
CVE-2026-61959 - 6.4CVE-2026-57328: Business Directory Plugin Stored XSS
CVE-2026-57328
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