What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-9215: Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors <= 4.7.1 - Insecure Direct Object Reference to Authenticated (Author+) Arbitrary User Email Update and Account Takeover

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-10-17 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-639

Description

The Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference to Privilege Escalation/Account Takeover in all versions up to, and including, 4.7.1 via the action_edited_author() due to missing validation on the 'authors-user_id' user controlled key. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to update arbitrary user accounts email addresses, including administrators, which can then be leveraged to reset that user's account password and gain access.

Affected products

• PublishPress Authors: through 4.7.1

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/publishpress-authors/tags/4.7.1/src/core/Classes/Author_Editor.php#L594
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3169244%40publishpress-authors&new=3169244%40publishpress-authors&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=#file7
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d0506137-82e3-4988-9b23-370465a866c0?source=cve

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