Controlled Admin Access <= 1.5.1 — Improper Access Control & Privilege Escalation
CVE-2021-24215Published · Updated Action summary
Affected: <1.5.2Update to 1.5.2 or newer
All remediation steps- Severity
- Critical9.8
- CVSS
- 9.8CVSS 3.1 · CNA (Wordfence)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HWhat does this vector mean?
AV:NAttack vector- Network
AC:LAttack complexity- Low
PR:NPrivileges required- None
UI:NUser interaction- None
S:UScope- Unchanged
C:HConfidentiality- High
I:HIntegrity- High
A:HAvailability- High
- Weakness
- CWE-284 Improper Access Control
- Required access
- No account needed
- Exploit prediction (EPSS)
- No score
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
On this page8
Am I affected?
Controlled Admin Access controlled-admin-access
- Affected< 1.5.2
- Patched in1.5.2
Update to 1.5.2 or newer.
You are affected if you run < 1.5.2. Version 1.5.2 and later are not affected by this issue.
- Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Controlled Admin Access.
- No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.
- No account is needed to exploit this. Treat any exposed site on an affected version as at risk.
What to do
- Update to version 1.5.2, or a newer patched version
- Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
- Watch Controlled Admin Access to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.
Advisory
Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to R3N0.
An Improper Access Control vulnerability was discovered in the Controlled Admin Access WordPress plugin before 1.5.2. Uncontrolled access to the website customization functionality and global CMS settings, like /wp-admin/customization.php and /wp-admin/options.php, can lead to a complete compromise of the target resource.
Exploits & references
Proof-of-concept & detection
No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.
Advisories & patches
- Advisorywordfence.com
Related CVEs
More in Controlled Admin Access
All 2| Severity | Vulnerability | CVE | Published |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical9.9 | Privilege Escalation <1.5.6Update to 1.5.6 | CVE-2021-4360 |
- Critical9.9Privilege Escalation
<1.5.6Update to 1.5.6
Timeline
CVE published
Severity critical, CVSS 9.8
Record last updated
Sources & licenses
Wordfence record- Vulnerability data
- Wordfence Intelligence. Copyright 2012-2026 Defiant Inc. Licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0.
- CVE® identifiers
- Copyright 1999-2026 The MITRE Corporation. Used under the CVE Program. CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.
- CVSS / CWE
- National Vulnerability Database (NVD), shown unmodified. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- VulnCrest content
- Summary, remediation guidance and page layout © VulnCrest. Not sourced from NVD.