Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- College publisher Import
- Affected Version
<= 0.1- CVSS
- 7.2High
- Weakness type
- CWE-434 · Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
- CVE
CVE-2021-24254
At a glance
CVE-2021-24254 is a high-severity Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type vulnerability in the College publisher Import WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 0.1. It carries a CVSS score of 7.2 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed April 2021, reported by Jin Huang.
Vulnerability Overview
The College publisher Import WordPress plugin through 0.1 does not check for the uploaded CSV file to import, allowing high privilege users to upload arbitrary files, such as PHP, leading to RCE. Due to the lack of CSRF check, the issue could also be exploited via a CSRF attack.
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-434: Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
Reaching this weakness in College publisher Import <= 0.1 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. An unrestricted file upload lets a caller store a file whose type or destination the application does not properly constrain.
If an uploaded file lands anywhere the server will execute, the flaw becomes remote code execution and the site should be treated as fully compromised. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for College publisher Import yet, so installs running <= 0.1 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to College publisher Import: 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. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Firewall
- Scanner
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C