CVE-2024-5973

MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin – for Online Courses and Education <= 3.3.23 - Unauthenticated Limited Privilege Escalation to Instructor

2024-07-01 00:00
Jaime F. Murillo

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.3.24
Affected Plugin
MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin – for Online Courses and Education
Affected Version
<= 3.3.23
CVSS
7.3High
Weakness type
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
CVE
CVE-2024-5973
View all MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin – for Online Courses and Education vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-5973 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.3.23. It carries a CVSS score of 7.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.3.24; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2024, reported by Jaime F. Murillo.

Vulnerability Overview

The MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin – for Online Courses and Education plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to limited privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 3.3.23. This is due to insufficient role restrictions when registering through the stm_lms_register AJAX endpoint. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register on sites with Instructor level access.

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.

CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management

Reaching this weakness in MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin <= 3.3.23 takes no account at all. 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. For MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin the fix is 3.3.24: builds <= 3.3.23 are affected, anything from 3.3.24 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.3.24, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: MasterStudy LMS WordPress Plugin 3.3.24 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-5973https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/18498171-7db1-4ebb-8fe0-a66d9343cb46https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-5973

Related records

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