Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 3.4.9
- Affected Plugin
- User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor
- Affected Version
< 3.4.9- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
- CVE
CVE-2021-24527
At a glance
CVE-2021-24527 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the User Profile Builder WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 3.4.9. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.4.9; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2021, reported by Stiofan.
Vulnerability Overview
The User Registration & User Profile – Profile Builder WordPress plugin before 3.4.9 has a bug allowing any user to reset the password of the admin of the blog, and gain unauthorised access, due to a bypass in the way the reset key is checked. Furthermore, the admin will not be notified of such change by email for example.
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-287: Improper Authentication
Reaching this weakness in User Profile Builder < 3.4.9 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.
An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For User Profile Builder the fix is 3.4.9: builds < 3.4.9 are affected, anything from 3.4.9 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 3.4.9, 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: User Profile Builder 3.4.9 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor
- 9.8CVE-2026-15826: User Profile Builder <= 3.16.4 Authentication Bypass
CVE-2026-15826 - 9.8CVE-2025-15030: User Profile Builder <= 3.15.1 Privilege Escalation
CVE-2025-15030 - 9.8CVE-2024-6695: User Profile Builder Authentication Bypass
CVE-2024-6695 - 9.8CVE-2023-2297: Profile Builder Insecure Password Reset Mechanism
CVE-2023-2297 - 9.8Profile Builder <= 3.1.0 Privilege Escalation
- 8.8CVE-2021-36915: Profile Builder CSRF
CVE-2021-36915 - 8.8Profile Builder/Profile Builder Pro <= 3.3.2 Blind SQL Injection
- 8.8Profile Builder <= 2.4.0 Privilege Escalation
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C