CVE-2024-4442

Salon booking system <= 9.9 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion

2024-05-17 00:00
István Márton

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 10.0
Affected Plugin
Salon Booking System – Appointment Booking for Salons, Barbershops & Spas
Affected Version
<= 9.9
CVSS
9.1Critical
Weakness type
CWE-22 · Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
CVE
CVE-2024-4442
View all Salon Booking System – Appointment Booking for Salons, Barbershops & Spas vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2024-4442 is a critical-severity Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in the Salon Booking System WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 9.9. It carries a CVSS score of 9.1 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 10.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2024, reported by István Márton.

Vulnerability Overview

The Salon booking system plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file deletion in all versions up to, and including, 9.8. This is due to the plugin not properly validating the path of an uploaded file prior to deleting it. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to delete arbitrary files, including the wp-config.php file, which can make site takeover and remote code execution possible. This was partially patched in 9.9, and sufficiently patched in 10.0. CVE-2024-37231 appears to be a duplicate of this issue.

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 integrity, availability.

CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Reaching this weakness in Salon Booking System <= 9.9 takes no account at all. Path traversal happens when user-controlled text is used to build a filesystem path without being constrained to an intended directory, so sequences like ../ walk the resolved path somewhere else.

Depending on the operation, it means reading files outside the intended folder — wp-config.php being the usual target — or writing to and deleting paths the web server can touch. For Salon Booking System the fix is 10.0: builds <= 9.9 are affected, anything from 10.0 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 10.0, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Requests carrying this pattern arrive without a session, so nothing upstream of the firewall gets a chance to reject them: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Salon Booking System 10.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Firewall
  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-4442https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/eaafeadd-f44c-49b1-b900-ef40800c629ehttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-4442

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C