CVE-2024-13834

Responsive Plus – Starter Templates, Advanced Features and Customizer Settings for Responsive Theme <= 3.1.4 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Blind Server-Side Request Forgery via remote_request

2025-02-14 00:00
Francesco Carlucci

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.1.5
Affected Plugin
Responsive Starter Templates – Elementor Templates & Starter Sites
Affected Version
<= 3.1.4
CVSS
5.4Medium
Weakness type
CWE-918 · Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
CVE
CVE-2024-13834
View all Responsive Starter Templates – Elementor Templates & Starter Sites vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-13834 is a medium-severity Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the Responsive Starter Templates WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 3.1.4. It carries a CVSS score of 5.4 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 3.1.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2025, reported by Francesco Carlucci.

Vulnerability Overview

The Responsive Plus – Starter Templates, Advanced Features and Customizer Settings for Responsive Theme plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Server-Side Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 3.1.4 via the 'remote_request' function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to make web requests to arbitrary locations originating from the web application and can be used to query and modify information from internal services.

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.

CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)

Responsive Starter Templates <= 3.1.4 carries this weakness at remote_request, and reaching it takes an account at Contributor level or above. Server-side request forgery means the application fetches a URL supplied by the caller, turning the server into a proxy for requests the attacker could not make directly.

The request originates from inside the hosting network, which is how these flaws reach cloud metadata endpoints, internal admin panels and services that trust local traffic. For Responsive Starter Templates the fix is 3.1.5: builds <= 3.1.4 are affected, anything from 3.1.5 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.1.5, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

An attacker needs Contributor access first, so the firewall sees the attempt as traffic from a logged-in account: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Responsive Starter Templates 3.1.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-13834https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/b2833265-f1e5-4cfd-ad2f-ca28a59de82fhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-13834

Related records

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