CVE-2021-24562

LMS by LifterLMS – Online Course, Membership & Learning Management System Plugin for WordPress < 4.21.2 - Insecure Direct Object Reference

2021-05-17 00:00
Amirmohammad vakili

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 4.21.2
Affected Plugin
LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes
Affected Version
< 4.21.2
CVSS
7.5High
Weakness type
CWE-639 · Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
CVE
CVE-2021-24562
View all LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24562 is a high-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in the LifterLMS WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 4.21.2. It carries a CVSS score of 7.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 4.21.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2021, reported by Amirmohammad vakili.

Vulnerability Overview

The LMS by LifterLMS – Online Course, Membership & Learning Management System Plugin for WordPress plugin before 4.21.2 was affected by an IDOR issue, allowing students to see other student answers and grades

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.

CWE-639: Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key

Reaching this weakness in LifterLMS < 4.21.2 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authorization bypass through a user-controlled key, often called insecure direct object reference, means the application looks up a record by an identifier from the request without checking that the caller owns it.

Changing a number in the request is enough to read or modify other users' records, which on commerce and membership sites means customer data. For LifterLMS the fix is 4.21.2: builds < 4.21.2 are affected, anything from 4.21.2 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 4.21.2, 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: LifterLMS 4.21.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24562https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a9057fc2-f346-47e5-964a-f3c5b1653c03https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24562

Related records

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