CVE-2024-11103

Contest Gallery <= 24.0.7 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Password Reset to Privilege Escalation/Account Takeover

2024-11-27 00:00
shaman0x01

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 24.0.8
Affected Plugin
Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe
Affected Version
<= 24.0.7
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-640 · Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password
CVE
CVE-2024-11103
View all Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-11103 is a critical-severity Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password vulnerability in the Contest Gallery WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 24.0.7. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 24.0.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2024, reported by shaman0x01.

Vulnerability Overview

The Contest Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 24.0.7. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a user's identity prior to updating their password. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change arbitrary user's passwords, including administrators, and leverage that to gain access to their account.

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, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-640: Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password

Reaching this weakness in Contest Gallery <= 24.0.7 takes no account at all. A weak password recovery mechanism means the path that lets someone back into an account without their password is easier to complete than the password itself.

An attacker takes over an account through the recovery flow without ever seeing the password, and on an administrator account that is full control of the site. For Contest Gallery the fix is 24.0.8: builds <= 24.0.7 are affected, anything from 24.0.8 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 24.0.8, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: Contest Gallery 24.0.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-11103https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/0df7f413-2631-46d9-8c0b-d66f05a02c01https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-11103

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C