WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program <= 8.4.1 - Authentication Bypass to Account Takeover and Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 8.5.0
- Affected Plugin
- WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program
- Affected Version
<= 8.4.1- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-288 · Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
- CVE
CVE-2024-9289
At a glance
CVE-2024-9289 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in the WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 8.4.1. 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 8.5.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed September 2024, reported by Tonn.
Vulnerability Overview
The WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authentication bypass in all versions up to, and including, 8.4.1. This is due to the rtwwwap_login_request_callback() function not properly validating a user's identity prior to authenticating them to the site. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as any user, including administrators, granted they have access to the administrator's email.
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-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program <= 8.4.1 carries this weakness at rtwwwap_login_request_callback(), and reaching it takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authentication bypass through an alternate path means the application has a second route to a protected action that skips the checks the primary route performs.
The protection on the main path becomes irrelevant, because the attacker simply uses the route that never asks. For WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program the fix is 8.5.0: builds <= 8.4.1 are affected, anything from 8.5.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 8.5.0, 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: WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program 8.5.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in WordPress & WooCommerce Affiliate Program
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C