CVE-2021-4073

RegistrationMagic <= 5.0.1.7 - Authentication Bypass

2021-12-08 00:00
Marco Wotschka

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.0.1.8
Affected Plugin
RegistrationMagic – Custom Registration Forms, User Registration, Payment, and User Login
Affected Version
<= 5.0.1.7
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
CVE
CVE-2021-4073
View all RegistrationMagic – Custom Registration Forms, User Registration, Payment, and User Login vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-4073 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the RegistrationMagic WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.0.1.7. 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 5.0.1.8; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2021, reported by Marco Wotschka.

Vulnerability Overview

The RegistrationMagic WordPress plugin made it possible for unauthenticated users to log in as any site user, including administrators, if they knew a valid username on the site due to missing identity validation in the social login function social_login_using_email() of the plugin. This affects versions equal to, and less than, 5.0.1.7.

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-287: Improper Authentication

RegistrationMagic <= 5.0.1.7 carries this weakness at social_login_using_email(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.

An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For RegistrationMagic the fix is 5.0.1.8: builds <= 5.0.1.7 are affected, anything from 5.0.1.8 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.0.1.8, 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: RegistrationMagic 5.0.1.8 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-4073https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/fbd978fd-f759-4983-90b0-af7338e21d30https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-4073

Related records

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