CVE-2021-34621

User Registration, User Profiles, Login & Membership – ProfilePress (Formerly WP User Avatar) 3.0.0 - 3.1.3 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation

2021-06-28 00:00
Chloe Chamberland

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 3.1.4
Affected Plugin
Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress
Affected Version
3.0.0 – 3.1.3
CVSS
9.8Critical
Weakness type
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
CVE
CVE-2021-34621
View all Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-34621 is a critical-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content WordPress plugin, affecting versions 3.0.0 – 3.1.3. 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 3.1.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2021, reported by Chloe Chamberland.

Vulnerability Overview

A vulnerability in the user registration component found in the ~/src/Classes/RegistrationAuth.php file of the ProfilePress WordPress plugin made it possible for users to register on sites as an administrator. This issue affects versions 3.0.0 - 3.1.3. .

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-269: Improper Privilege Management

Reaching this weakness in Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content 3.0.0 – 3.1.3 takes no account at all. 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 Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content the fix is 3.1.4: builds 3.0.0 – 3.1.3 are affected, anything from 3.1.4 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 3.1.4, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content 3.1.4 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-34621https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/71955ba0-42ba-49a1-8b91-81069c6132eahttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-34621

Related records

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