CVE-2021-24915

Contest Gallery – Photo Contest Plugin for WordPress <= 13.1.0.5 - SQL Injection

2022-04-13 00:00
Tyler Miller

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 13.1.0.6
Affected Plugin
Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe
Affected Version
<= 13.1.0.5
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-89 · Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')
CVE
CVE-2021-24915
View all Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24915 is a critical-severity Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection') vulnerability in the Contest Gallery WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 13.1.0.5. 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 13.1.0.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2022, reported by Tyler Miller.

Vulnerability Overview

The Contest Gallery WordPress plugin before 13.1.0.6 does not have capability checks and does not sanitise or escape the cg-search-user-name-original parameter before using it in a SQL statement when exporting users from a gallery, which could allow unauthenticated to perform SQL injections attacks, as well as get the list of all users registered on the blog, including their username and email address

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

Reaching this weakness in Contest Gallery <= 13.1.0.5 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. 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 Contest Gallery the fix is 13.1.0.6: builds <= 13.1.0.5 are affected, anything from 13.1.0.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 13.1.0.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Contest Gallery: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Contest Gallery 13.1.0.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24915https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/3184c304-52d3-4baa-b3c2-90957e1d8e79https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24915

Related records

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