CVE-2024-12860
Published: 18 February 2025
Summary
CVE-2024-12860 is a critical-severity Unverified Password Change (CWE-620) vulnerability in Carspot Project Carspot. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Valid Accounts (T1078); ranked at the 44.4th 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 IA-5 (Authenticator Management) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2024-12860 is a privilege escalation vulnerability via account takeover in the CarSpot – Dealership WordPress Classified Theme for WordPress, affecting all versions up to and including 2.4.3. The issue stems from the plugin failing to properly validate a token before updating a user's password, enabling unauthorized password changes. It is associated with CWE-620 and has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating critical severity with network accessibility, low attack complexity, and no privileges or user interaction required.
Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability remotely to reset the passwords of arbitrary users, including administrators, and subsequently gain full access to those accounts. This allows complete site compromise, as attackers could escalate privileges to perform administrative actions.
Mitigation details are outlined in advisories from sources including the Wordfence threat intelligence page at https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d1043dce-628f-485b-bc1c-b78938c2a6f5?source=cve and the theme listing on ThemeForest at https://themeforest.net/item/carspot-automotive-car-dealer-wordpress-classified-theme/20195539. The vulnerability was published on 2025-02-18.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-4811
Vulnerability details
The CarSpot – Dealership Wordpress Classified Theme theme for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 2.4.3. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a token prior to updating…
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a user's password. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change arbitrary user's passwords, including administrators, and leverage that to gain access to their account.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Direct account takeover via unauthenticated password reset on public-facing WordPress app enables T1190 for initial access, T1098 for password manipulation, and T1078 for subsequent use of valid admin accounts.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Requires validation of inputs such as the reset token prior to processing password updates, directly addressing the lack of token validation in the vulnerable plugin.
Mandates secure management and protection of authenticators like passwords against unauthorized modification or changes without proper verification.
Requires identification, reporting, and correction of software flaws like the improper token validation in the CarSpot theme to prevent exploitation.