CVE-2024-4157

Contact Form Plugin by Fluent Forms for Quiz, Survey, and Drag & Drop WP Form Builder <= 5.1.15 - PHP Object Injection via extractDynamicValues

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.1.16
Affected Version
<= 5.1.15
CVSS
7.5High
Weakness type
CWE-502 · Deserialization of Untrusted Data
CVE
CVE-2024-4157
View all Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-4157 is a high-severity Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in the Fluent Forms WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.1.15. It carries a CVSS score of 7.5 (reachable over the network; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). The issue is fixed in version 5.1.16; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2024, reported by Tobias Weißhaar (kun_19).

Vulnerability Overview

The Contact Form Plugin by Fluent Forms for Quiz, Survey, and Drag & Drop WP Form Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to PHP Object Injection in all versions up to, and including, 5.1.15 via deserialization of untrusted input in the extractDynamicValues function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject a PHP Object. If a POP chain is present via an additional plugin or theme installed on the target system, it could allow the attacker to delete arbitrary files, retrieve sensitive data, or execute code. Successful exploitation requires the attacker to have "View Form" and "Manage Form" permissions, which must be explicitly set by an administrator. However, this requirement can be bypassed when this vulnerability is chained with CVE-2024-2771.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-502: Deserialization of Untrusted Data

Fluent Forms <= 5.1.15 carries this weakness at and, and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Deserialization of untrusted data means the application reconstructs objects from input a caller controls, letting the attacker choose which classes get instantiated and what their properties hold.

A workable chain turns deserialization into file writes, deletions or code execution, depending on what the loaded classes do in their magic methods. For Fluent Forms the fix is 5.1.16: builds <= 5.1.15 are affected, anything from 5.1.16 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.1.16, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Fluent Forms: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. Classes like this one can leave something behind, so the staged malware scanner is the second half: it looks for dropped files and modified code rather than for the request that created them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Fluent Forms 5.1.16 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Scanner
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

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