CVE-2021-24981

Directorist <= 7.0.6.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Arbitrary File Upload

2021-11-16 00:00
lostbytes1

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 7.0.6.2
Affected Plugin
Directorist: AI-Powered Business Directory, Listings & Classified Ads
Affected Version
<= 7.0.6.1
CVSS
8.8High
Weakness type
CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CVE
CVE-2021-24981
View all Directorist: AI-Powered Business Directory, Listings & Classified Ads vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24981 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Directorist WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 7.0.6.1. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 7.0.6.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2021, reported by lostbytes1.

Vulnerability Overview

The Directorist WordPress plugin before 7.0.6.2 was vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery to Remote File Upload leading to arbitrary PHP shell uploads in the wp-content/plugins directory.

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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Reaching this weakness in Directorist <= 7.0.6.1 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.

An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For Directorist the fix is 7.0.6.2: builds <= 7.0.6.1 are affected, anything from 7.0.6.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 7.0.6.2, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Directorist: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Directorist 7.0.6.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24981https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/41896fb5-1b6b-4a35-b3e9-9c4b5215b153https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24981

Related records

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