CVE-2021-24281

Redirection for Contact Form 7 <= 2.3.3 - Authenticated Arbitrary Post Deletion

2021-04-20 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.3.4
Affected Plugin: Redirection for Contact Form 7
Affected Version: < 2.3.4
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-863 · Incorrect Authorization
CVE: CVE-2021-24281

View all Redirection for Contact Form 7 vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2021-24281 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization vulnerability in the Redirection for Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin, affecting versions < 2.3.4. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account. The issue is fixed in version 2.3.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2021, reported by Chloe Chamberland.

Vulnerability Overview

In the Redirection for Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin before 2.3.4, any authenticated user, such as a subscriber, could use the delete_action_post AJAX action to delete any post on a target site.

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 interaction from a victim user.

CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization

Reaching this weakness in Redirection for Contact Form 7 < 2.3.4 takes any authenticated account. Incorrect authorization means a permission check exists but evaluates the wrong thing, so it passes for callers it was meant to stop.

The action runs for users the code intended to exclude, with the same effect as having no check at all. For Redirection for Contact Form 7 the fix is 2.3.4: builds < 2.3.4 are affected, anything from 2.3.4 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.3.4, 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: Redirection for Contact Form 7 2.3.4 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24281 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ab8f8370-50bd-48c8-89e1-8b19b51f78b5 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-24281

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in Redirection for Contact Form 7

CVSS Vector

4.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredLow
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityLow
AvailabilityNone

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