CVE-2024-7786 in Sensei LMS Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 09/04/2024
The Sensei LMS WordPress plugin before 4.24.2 does not properly protect some its REST API routes, allowing unauthenticated attackers to leak email templates.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/07/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-7786 affects the Sensei LMS WordPress plugin version 4.24.1 and earlier, representing a critical security flaw in the plugin's REST API implementation. This issue stems from inadequate access control mechanisms that fail to properly authenticate requests to specific API endpoints. The vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to exploit unprotected REST API routes and extract sensitive email template data that should remain restricted to authorized users within the learning management system. The affected plugin serves thousands of WordPress installations and provides course management, assessment, and learning analytics functionality for educational platforms.
The technical implementation flaw manifests in the plugin's REST API route definitions where certain endpoints responsible for email template retrieval lack proper authentication checks. This misconfiguration creates a direct pathway for attackers to access sensitive email content through simple HTTP requests without requiring valid credentials or administrative privileges. The vulnerability specifically targets the plugin's REST API endpoints that handle email template data, which typically contains instructional content, course notifications, and user communication templates that could be valuable for social engineering or targeted attacks. According to CWE classification, this represents a weakness in access control mechanisms under CWE-285, specifically related to insufficient authorization checks for API endpoints.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure, as email templates often contain structured content that can be leveraged for various malicious purposes including phishing campaigns, credential harvesting, or targeted social engineering attacks. Attackers could potentially extract templates containing course enrollment notifications, password reset instructions, or other user communication patterns that provide insights into the system's operational structure and user interaction flows. This information leakage creates opportunities for attackers to craft more convincing deceptive communications or identify additional attack vectors within the broader WordPress ecosystem. The vulnerability also violates fundamental security principles of least privilege and defense in depth, as it allows unauthorized access to data that should remain protected within the administrative scope of the learning management system.
Organizations utilizing the affected Sensei LMS plugin should immediately implement the available patch version 4.24.2 which addresses the improper access control by implementing proper authentication checks for the vulnerable REST API routes. Security administrators should also review their WordPress plugin inventory and ensure all installed plugins receive regular updates from trusted sources. Network monitoring should be enhanced to detect unusual API access patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts, particularly targeting endpoints related to email template retrieval. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability aligns with technique T1566.002 for credential harvesting and T1005 for data from local systems, highlighting the potential for both information gathering and subsequent attack escalation. Additional mitigations include implementing web application firewalls to restrict access to REST API endpoints, configuring proper access controls at the network level, and conducting security audits of all WordPress plugin configurations to identify similar access control weaknesses in other components of the web application stack.