WordPress administrators should update their websites with the latest version of the ProfileGrid plugin. A severe privilege escalation vulnerability in the ProfileGrid plugin could give administrator access to target WordPress sites.
ProfileGrid plugin vulnerability risked WordPress sites
In a recent one afterteam Wordfence has shared details about a serious privilege escalation vulnerability in the ProfileGrid plugin that threatened thousands of WordPress sites.
ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities is a special plugin for WordPress sites that allows users to set up user profiles, communities, folders, groups and other interactive interfaces. The plugin currently has over 7,000 active installations, indicating the vast number of websites potentially at risk due to the underlying plugin flaw.
As explained, the vulnerability affected the plugin pm_upload_image AJAX action due to lack of validation. An authenticated adversary could exploit the flaw to gain elevated privileges, and even gain administrative access to the target sites via subscriber-level access.
The vulnerability has received the CVE ID CVE-2024-6411, achieving a high severity rating and a CVSS score of 8.8. It first caught the attention of security researcher Tieu Pham Trong Nhan of TechlabCorp, who reported the case through Wordfence’s bug bounty program and won a $488 bounty.
This vulnerability affected all plugin versions up to version 5.8.9. In response to this bug report, Wordfence coordinated with the plugin developers to create a patch, which the developers then rolled out with ProfileGrid version 5.9.0, which was released earlier this month.
While there appear to be no attempts to exploit this flaw in the wild, the plugin’s official WordPress page currently shows that only 36.7% are using the latest release, while the rest of users continue to use the older, vulnerable plugin versions. Therefore, given the threat, it is crucial for all WordPress users to update their sites with the latest plugin as soon as possible.
Moreover, it is also important to check all plugins running on their websites for possible security solutions to avoid potential threats.
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