CVE-2024-13643: Zox News <= 3.17.0 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Options Modification
Description
The Zox News - Professional WordPress News & Magazine Theme plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized data modification. This vulnerability can lead to privilege escalation and denial of service conditions due to missing capability checks on the backup_options() and reset_options() functions in all versions up to and including 3.17.0. This vulnerability allows authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access and above to update and delete arbitrary option values on the WordPress site. Attackers can exploit this issue to update the default user role for registration to Administrator and enable user registration, thereby gaining administrative access to the vulnerable site. Additionally, they could delete critical options, causing errors that may disrupt the site's functionality and deny service to legitimate users.
Classification
CVE ID: CVE-2024-13643
CVSS Base Severity: HIGH
CVSS Base Score: 8.8
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Affected Products
Vendor: MVPThemes
Product: Zox News - Professional WordPress News & Magazine Theme
Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)
EPSS Score: 0.06% (probability of being exploited)
EPSS Percentile: 26.72% (scored less or equal to compared to others)
EPSS Date: 2025-03-12 (when was this score calculated)
References
https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/4adb7436-11e6-4512-b6c9-551402909bf0?source=cvehttps://mvpthemes.com/zoxnews/
https://themeforest.net/item/zox-news-professional-wordpress-news-magazine-theme/20381541