GERRYWORKS Post by Mail <= 1.0 - Contributor+ Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- GERRYWORKS Post by Mail
- Affected Version
<= 1.0- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
- CVE
CVE-2024-49608
At a glance
CVE-2024-49608 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the GERRYWORKS Post by Mail WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.0. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed October 2024, reported by Kévin Mosbahi (Mika).
Vulnerability Overview
The GERRYWORKS Post by Mail plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.0. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator.
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 interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
Reaching this weakness in GERRYWORKS Post by Mail <= 1.0 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper privilege management means the code lets an account end up with capabilities its role should not have.
It converts a low-privileged account into an administrative one, which makes every other restriction on the site irrelevant. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for GERRYWORKS Post by Mail yet, so installs running <= 1.0 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
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. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C