The Co-Authors, Multiple Authors and Guest Authors in an Author Box with PublishPress Authors plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference to Privilege Escalation/Account Takeover in all versions up to, and including, 4.7.1 via the action_edited_author() due to missing validation on the 'authors-user_id' user controlled key. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to update arbitrary user accounts email addresses, including administrators, which can then be leveraged to reset that user's account password and gain access.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-9215
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/publishpress-authors/tags/4.7.1/src/core/Classes/Author_Editor.php#L594
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=3169244%40publishpress-authors&new=3169244%40publishpress-authors&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=#file7
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d0506137-82e3-4988-9b23-370465a866c0?source=cve