Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- Meetup
- Affected Version
<= 0.1- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-288 · Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
- CVE
CVE-2024-50483
At a glance
CVE-2024-50483 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in the Meetup WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 0.1. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed October 2024, reported by Bonds.
Vulnerability Overview
The Meetup plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authentication bypass in all versions up to, and including, 0.1. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying a user's identity prior to authenticating them via the facebook_register() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as any user, granted they know their email address.
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, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
Meetup <= 0.1 carries this weakness at facebook_register(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authentication bypass through an alternate path means the application has a second route to a protected action that skips the checks the primary route performs.
The protection on the main path becomes irrelevant, because the attacker simply uses the route that never asks. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Meetup yet, so installs running <= 0.1 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