Security Resilience

CVE-2024-10542

Access Control in Cleantalk Anti-Spam ≤ 6.44

Published
26 November 2024
Modified
12 July 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.15 97th percentile
Risk Priority 97 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2024-10542 is a critical-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Cleantalk Anti-Spam. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, ranked in the top 3% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-25 (Reference Monitor) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

The Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized arbitrary plugin installation in all versions through 6.43.2. The flaw stems from an authorization bypass in the checkWithoutToken function that relies on reverse DNS lookups, allowing the plugin to process remote calls without proper authentication checks and exposing the site to CWE-862 issues. The vulnerability carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.8.

Unauthenticated attackers can exploit the bypass over the network to install and activate arbitrary plugins. When another vulnerable plugin is present, this access can be chained to achieve remote code execution on the underlying WordPress site. The EPSS score rose sharply from a low baseline to a peak of 0.7563 on 2025-12-11 before receding to the current value of 0.4097, indicating increased exploitation interest after disclosure.

References point to a patched version of the plugin released via the WordPress repository, with code changes addressing the RemoteCalls.php logic that handled unauthenticated token checks. Site administrators should update to a version beyond 6.43.2 and review installed plugins for additional weaknesses that could be leveraged in combination with this issue.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

The Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized Arbitrary Plugin Installation due to an authorization bypass via reverse DNS spoofing on the checkWithoutToken function in all versions up to, and including, 6.43.2. This makes…

more

it possible for unauthenticated attackers to install and activate arbitrary plugins which can be leveraged to achieve remote code execution if another vulnerable plugin is installed and activated.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-32081Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-24633Shared CWE-862
CVE-2024-38721Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-21133Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-53291Shared CWE-862
CVE-2024-56066Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-1337Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-23190Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-46195Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-32593Shared CWE-862

Affected Assets

cleantalk
anti-spam
≤ 6.44

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-3 directly requires enforcement of authorization decisions on every access request, structurally eliminating missing authorization checks.

AC-24 mandates that access control decisions are applied to each request, preventing bypass of authorization logic.

AC-25 requires a tamperproof, always-invoked reference monitor that ensures authorization checks cannot be omitted.

AC-6 reduces the set of actions reachable without proper authorization, limiting blast radius of missing checks.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.

blocks

A.5.18's provisioning, review, revocation and activation steps (incl. owner approval, SoD, timely removal on role/termination change) directly stop exploitation of missing authorization checks by ensuring no actor receives or retains rights to resources they should not access; the bounded remainder is that it cannot stop missing-authorization defects inside the enforcement mechanism itself once rights have been granted (e.g. flawed code that ignores the rights table).

finds

By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.

blocks

A.5.8 integrates risk assessment, requirements elicitation and governance into the project lifecycle so that authorization needs can be identified and specified; it does not itself perform or enforce authorization checks, so the missing-authorization weakness can still be present and exploitable.

blocks

Security checkpoints and explicit authorization requirements in the design phase ensure that every sensitive function is paired with an access-control check, reducing missing-authorization defects.

blocks

A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (least privilege, default deny, security architecture integration, zero-trust never-trust/always-verify, dynamic access control) plus design reviews that directly specify and enforce authorization checks before access; this stops most missing-authorization cases from being exploitable, with a bounded remainder in non-architectural or legacy components where the principles were documented but not fully applied.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-862, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.

References