User Role Editor <= 4.64.3 - Cross-Site Request Forgery to Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 4.64.4
- Affected Plugin
- User Role Editor
- Affected Version
<= 4.64.3- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2024-12293
At a glance
CVE-2024-12293 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the User Role Editor WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.64.3. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 4.64.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2024, reported by vgo0.
Vulnerability Overview
The User Role Editor plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery in all versions up to, and including, 4.64.3. This is due to missing or incorrect nonce validation on the update_roles() function. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to add or remove roles for arbitrary users, including escalating their privileges to administrator, via a forged request granted they can trick a site administrator into performing an action such as clicking on a link.
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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
User Role Editor <= 4.64.3 carries this weakness at update_roles(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.
An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For User Role Editor the fix is 4.64.4: builds <= 4.64.3 are affected, anything from 4.64.4 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 4.64.4, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to User Role Editor: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: User Role Editor 4.64.4 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in User Role Editor
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