Zox News <= 3.17.0 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Options Modification
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 3.17.1
- Affected Theme
- Zox News
- Affected Version
<= 3.17.0- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-862 · Missing Authorization
- CVE
CVE-2024-13643
At a glance
CVE-2024-13643 is a high-severity Missing Authorization vulnerability in the Zox News WordPress theme, affecting versions <= 3.17.0. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 3.17.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2025, reported by Lucio Sá.
Vulnerability Overview
The Zox News - Professional WordPress News & Magazine Theme plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized data modification. This vulnerability can lead to privilege escalation and denial of service conditions due to missing capability checks on the backup_options() and reset_options() functions in all versions up to and including 3.17.0. This vulnerability allows authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access and above to update and delete arbitrary option values on the WordPress site. Attackers can exploit this issue to update the default user role for registration to Administrator and enable user registration, thereby gaining administrative access to the vulnerable site. Additionally, they could delete critical options, causing errors that may disrupt the site's functionality and deny service to legitimate users.
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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-862: Missing Authorization
Zox News <= 3.17.0 carries this weakness at backup_options(), and reaching it takes an account at Subscriber level or above. 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 Zox News the fix is 3.17.1: builds <= 3.17.0 are affected, anything from 3.17.1 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 3.17.1, 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: Zox News 3.17.1 closes this, and updating the theme is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C