Security Resilience

CVE-2024-2242

XSS in Rocklobster Contact Form 7 ≤ 5.9.2

Published
13 March 2024
Modified
17 June 2026
CVSS Score v3.1 6.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
EPSS Score 0.013 70th percentile
Risk Priority 71 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-2024-2242 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Rocklobster Contact Form 7. Its CVSS base score is 6.1 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Protocol or Service Impersonation (T1001.003); ranked in the top 30% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — 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 Contact Form 7 plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to reflected cross-site scripting via the active-tab parameter in all versions up to and including 5.9. The issue stems from insufficient input sanitization and output escaping, as classified under CWE-79, and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 6.1 reflecting network attack vector, low complexity, no required privileges, and required user interaction with changed scope.

Unauthenticated attackers can exploit the flaw by crafting malicious links that inject arbitrary web scripts; successful execution occurs if a targeted user clicks the link, enabling limited impacts to confidentiality and integrity within the affected site's context.

Advisories reference a plugin changeset that addresses the parameter handling in edit-contact-form.php, indicating that updating to a patched version of Contact Form 7 mitigates the exposure, with additional details available through Wordfence threat intelligence reporting.

The EPSS score stands at 0.6848 with an identical peak value and no documented real-world exploitation activity.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

The Contact Form 7 plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘active-tab’ parameter in all versions up to, and including, 5.9 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers…

more

to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that execute if they can successfully trick a user into performing an action such as clicking on a link.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation Command And Control
Adversaries may impersonate legitimate protocols or web service traffic to disguise command and control activity and thwart analysis efforts.
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
T1003.005 Cached Domain Credentials Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access cached domain credentials used to allow authentication to occur in the event a domain controller is unavailable.
T1007 System Service Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services.
T1011 Exfiltration Over Other Network Medium Exfiltration
Adversaries may attempt to exfiltrate data over a different network medium than the command and control channel.
T1012 Query Registry Discovery
Adversaries may interact with the Windows Registry to gather information about the system, configuration, and installed software.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-0280Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-5638Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-49181Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-0695Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-44144Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-40680Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-4599Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-30493Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-23667Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin
CVE-2023-5230Same product class: WordPress / CMS plugin

Affected Assets

rocklobster
contact form 7
≤ 5.9.2

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.1.2
  • V1.3.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation can discover missing or incorrect input neutralization through targeted web-application tests.

Input validation directly enforces neutralization of untrusted data before it reaches web output generation.

Output filtering can catch or sanitize unneutralized script content before it is served to users.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

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

PR.PS-06 mostly match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly target introduction of XSS via coding standards/testing (mostly), yet the single broad outcome leaves many specific neutralization vectors unaddressed (partial).

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Patching and EOL replacement can remediate known XSS instances in libraries or frameworks (partial) but do nothing to enforce input neutralization in application code (none).

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.

removes
removes
removes
removes
blocks

A.5.6 only promotes membership in groups to improve knowledge, receive alerts, and share information; it performs no action that stops XSS exploitation (or even the underlying neutralization defect) and is a pure dependency for other controls per the owner's labeling rule.

References