CVE-2024-6411

ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities <= 5.8.9 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Authorization Bypass to Privilege Escalation

2024-07-09 15:34
Truoc Phan

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 5.9.0
Affected Plugin
ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities
Affected Version
<= 5.8.9
CVSS
8.8High
Weakness type
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
CVE
CVE-2024-6411
View all ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-6411 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the ProfileGrid WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.8.9. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 5.9.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2024, reported by Truoc Phan.

Vulnerability Overview

The ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 5.8.9. This is due to a lack of validation on user-supplied data in the 'pm_upload_image' AJAX action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to update their user capabilities 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

ProfileGrid <= 5.8.9 carries this weakness at pm_upload_image, and reaching it takes an account at Subscriber level or above. 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 ProfileGrid the fix is 5.9.0: builds <= 5.8.9 are affected, anything from 5.9.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.9.0, 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: ProfileGrid 5.9.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-6411https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/2ef3c7fb-27f5-4829-8cb6-d3a52778a689https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-6411

Related records

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