CVE-2024-12129
Published: 30 January 2025
Summary
CVE-2024-12129 is a high-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Wp-Royal-Themes Royal Core. Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 27.9th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2024-12129 is a vulnerability in the Royal Core plugin for WordPress, affecting all versions up to and including 2.9.2. It stems from a missing capability check on the 'royal_restore_backup' function, enabling unauthorized modification of data that leads to privilege escalation. The issue is classified under CWE-862 (Missing Authorization) and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating high severity due to its network accessibility, low complexity, and potential for high impact across confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or higher can exploit this vulnerability remotely without user interaction. By calling the vulnerable function, they can update arbitrary WordPress options, such as modifying the default role for new user registrations to administrator and enabling registration. This allows attackers to self-register with administrative privileges, achieving full site compromise.
Mitigation guidance is available in advisories from Wordfence at https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a6ca0a45-cbb3-419b-a2fd-7427935524d8?source=cve. The plugin is associated with the HyperX Portfolio theme listed on ThemeForest at https://themeforest.net/item/hyperx-portfolio-for-freelancers-agencies/13439786.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-50618
Vulnerability details
The Royal Core plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data that can lead to privilege escalation due to a missing capability check on the 'royal_restore_backup' function in all versions up to, and including, 2.9.2. This makes it…
more
possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to update arbitrary options on the WordPress site. This can be leveraged to update the default role for registration to administrator and enable user registration for attackers to gain administrative user access to a vulnerable site.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Direct remote exploitation of public-facing WordPress plugin (T1190) via missing authz to achieve privilege escalation (T1068) and arbitrary option changes for account role manipulation (T1098).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces approved authorizations for logical access to prevent unauthorized data modification, directly countering the missing capability check in the royal_restore_backup function.
Restricts privileges to the least necessary for tasks, preventing Subscriber-level users from escalating via arbitrary option updates.
Mandates identification, testing, and installation of flaw fixes, enabling patching of the vulnerable Royal Core plugin versions.