VulnCrest
Search
Create account
Report an incident
Radar sectionsDatabase
Check my site
WordPress plugin

Malware Scanner <= 4.7.2 and Web Application Firewall <= 2.1.1 — Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation

CVE-2024-2172Published · Updated

Action summary

Web Application Firewall – website security: Affected: ≤2.1.1Update to 2.1.2 or newer

Malware Scanner: Affected: ≤4.7.2Update to 4.7.3 or newer

All remediation steps
Watch plugin
Severity
Critical9.8
CVSS
9.8
CVSS 3.1 · CNA (Wordfence)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
What does this vector mean?
AV:N Attack vector
Network
AC:L Attack complexity
Low
PR:N Privileges required
None
UI:N User interaction
None
S:U Scope
Unchanged
C:H Confidentiality
High
I:H Integrity
High
A:H Availability
High
Weakness
CWE-304 Missing Critical Step in Authentication
Required access
No account needed
Exploit prediction (EPSS)
No score
CISA KEV
Not listed
On this page8

Am I affected?

Web Application Firewall – website security web-application-firewall

  1. Affected≤ 2.1.1
  2. Patched in2.1.2

Update to 2.1.2 or newer.

You are affected if you run ≤ 2.1.1. Version 2.1.2 and later are not affected by this issue.

Malware Scanner miniorange-malware-protection

  1. Affected≤ 4.7.2
  2. Patched in4.7.3

Update to 4.7.3 or newer.

You are affected if you run ≤ 4.7.2. Version 4.7.3 and later are not affected by this issue.

  • Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Web Application Firewall – website security.
  • 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

  1. Update to version 2.1.2, or a newer patched version
  2. Update to version 4.7.3, or a newer patched version
  3. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
  4. Watch Web Application Firewall – website security to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Stiofan.

The Malware Scanner plugin and the Web Application Firewall plugin for WordPress (both by MiniOrange) are vulnerable to privilege escalation due to a missing capability check on the mo_wpns_init() function in all versions up to, and including, 4.7.2 (for Malware Scanner) and 2.1.1 (for Web Application Firewall). This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to escalate their privileges to that of an administrator.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

More in Web Application Firewall – website security

All 2
More vulnerabilities in Web Application Firewall – website security
SeverityVulnerabilityCVEPublished
Medium5.3IP Address Spoofing to Protection Mechanism Bypass
≤2.1.2Update to 2.1.3
CVE-2022-4539

Timeline

  1. CVE published

    Severity critical, CVSS 9.8

  2. 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.

How we use these sources

Search VulnCrest Radar

Jump to

Are you sure?