Controlled Admin Access <= 1.5.1 - Improper Access Control & Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.5.2
- Affected Plugin
- Controlled Admin Access
- Affected Version
< 1.5.2- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-284 · Improper Access Control
- CVE
CVE-2021-24215
At a glance
CVE-2021-24215 is a critical-severity Improper Access Control vulnerability in the Controlled Admin Access WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 1.5.2. 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 1.5.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed March 2021, reported by R3N0.
Vulnerability Overview
An Improper Access Control vulnerability was discovered in the Controlled Admin Access WordPress plugin before 1.5.2. Uncontrolled access to the website customization functionality and global CMS settings, like /wp-admin/customization.php and /wp-admin/options.php, can lead to a complete compromise of the target resource.
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-284: Improper Access Control
Reaching this weakness in Controlled Admin Access < 1.5.2 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper access control means the code decides what a caller may do using something other than their actual permissions, so the decision can be wrong without any check appearing to be missing.
Whoever can shape the request decides the answer, so the protected action runs for callers the code never meant to allow. For Controlled Admin Access the fix is 1.5.2: builds < 1.5.2 are affected, anything from 1.5.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.5.2, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Controlled Admin Access 1.5.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
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