WooCommerce Point of Sale <= 6.1.0 - Insecure Direct Object Reference to Privilege Escalation via Arbitrary User Email Change
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 6.2.0
- Affected Plugin
- WooCommerce Point of Sale
- Affected Version
<= 6.1.0- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-862 · Missing Authorization
- CVE
CVE-2024-11281
At a glance
CVE-2024-11281 is a critical-severity Missing Authorization vulnerability in the WooCommerce Point of Sale WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 6.1.0. 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 6.2.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2024, reported by Tonn.
Vulnerability Overview
The WooCommerce Point of Sale plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 6.1.0. This is due to insufficient validation on the 'logged_in_user_id' value when option values are empty and the ability for attackers to change the email of arbitrary user accounts. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change the email of arbitrary user accounts, including administrators, and reset their password to gain access to the account.
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-862: Missing Authorization
WooCommerce Point of Sale <= 6.1.0 carries this weakness at logged_in_user_id, and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. A missing authorization check means a function is reachable by anyone who can reach the endpoint, because the code never asks whether the caller is allowed to perform the action.
Any user who can reach the endpoint gets to run an action reserved for higher-privileged roles, from reading protected data to changing settings or content. For WooCommerce Point of Sale the fix is 6.2.0: builds <= 6.1.0 are affected, anything from 6.2.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 6.2.0, 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: WooCommerce Point of Sale 6.2.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
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