CVE-2024-4180 in Events Calendar Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 06/04/2024
The Events Calendar WordPress plugin before 6.4.0.1 does not properly sanitize user-submitted content when rendering some views via AJAX.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/26/2025
The CVE-2024-4180 vulnerability affects the Events Calendar WordPress plugin version 6.4.0.1 and earlier, presenting a critical security flaw that stems from insufficient sanitization of user-submitted content during AJAX rendering processes. This vulnerability specifically impacts how the plugin handles data when generating certain views through asynchronous JavaScript calls, creating a potential attack vector that could be exploited by malicious actors to execute unauthorized actions within the targeted WordPress environment. The flaw resides in the plugin's failure to adequately validate and sanitize input data before rendering it in web views, which violates fundamental security principles of input validation and output encoding.
The technical nature of this vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious content through user-submitted data that gets processed and rendered without proper sanitization. When the plugin handles AJAX requests for specific calendar views, it fails to implement adequate content sanitization measures, potentially enabling cross-site scripting attacks. This issue directly relates to CWE-79 which describes improper neutralization of input during web page generation, commonly known as cross-site scripting. The vulnerability can be exploited by crafting malicious input that gets executed in the context of other users' browsers, potentially leading to session hijacking, data theft, or unauthorized administrative actions within the WordPress installation.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-4180 extends beyond simple data corruption or display issues, as it represents a significant risk to the overall security posture of WordPress installations using the affected plugin. Attackers could leverage this vulnerability to execute arbitrary JavaScript code in users' browsers, potentially compromising user sessions and gaining unauthorized access to administrative functions. The AJAX-based nature of the flaw means that exploitation could occur through normal user interactions with calendar events, making detection more challenging. This vulnerability affects the plugin's rendering engine specifically during asynchronous operations, which aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for initial access through spearphishing attachments or links, as users might unknowingly trigger the exploit while browsing calendar content.
Organizations using the Events Calendar plugin must prioritize immediate remediation by upgrading to version 6.4.0.1 or later, which contains the necessary sanitization patches. Security teams should implement additional monitoring for unusual AJAX requests and content submissions within calendar-related functionality. The mitigation strategy should include regular security audits of WordPress plugins, implementation of web application firewalls, and enforcement of proper input validation at multiple layers within the application architecture. Organizations should also consider implementing content security policies to limit script execution and establish network segmentation to contain potential exploitation attempts. This vulnerability underscores the importance of maintaining up-to-date plugins and implementing comprehensive security controls around user-generated content processing, as it demonstrates how seemingly minor input validation gaps can create significant security risks in widely-used web applications.