CVE-2021-24131

Anti-Spam by CleanTalk < 5.149 - Authenticated SQL Injection

2020-11-20 00:00
Nguyen Anh Tien

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.149
Affected Plugin
Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk
Affected Version
< 5.149
CVSS
7.2High
Weakness type
CWE-89 · Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')
CVE
CVE-2021-24131
View all Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24131 is a high-severity Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection') vulnerability in the Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 5.149. It carries a CVSS score of 7.2 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account. The issue is fixed in version 5.149; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2020, reported by Nguyen Anh Tien.

Vulnerability Overview

Unvalidated input in the Anti-Spam by CleanTalk WordPress plugin, versions before 5.149, lead to multiple authenticated SQL injection vulnerabilities, however, it requires high privilege user (admin+).

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-89: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

Reaching this weakness in Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk < 5.149 takes any authenticated account. SQL injection happens when request data is concatenated into a query instead of being bound as a parameter, letting an attacker change the structure of the statement rather than just its values.

A working injection can read any table the database user can see, which on a WordPress install means user records, password hashes and session or API secrets stored in options. For Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk the fix is 5.149: builds < 5.149 are affected, anything from 5.149 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.149, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk 5.149 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24131https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/67631693-ae8a-4532-a9e3-f21b385131a2https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24131

Related records

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