CVE-2024-24884: Contact Form 7 Connector CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2024-24884 Overview

CVE-2024-24884 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability [CWE-352] affecting the ARI Soft Contact Form 7 Connector plugin for WordPress. The flaw impacts all versions up to and including 1.2.2. An attacker can trick an authenticated administrator into submitting a forged request that performs privileged actions within the plugin. Successful exploitation requires user interaction, typically clicking a malicious link or visiting an attacker-controlled page while authenticated to WordPress. The vulnerability carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 8.8 due to potential high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected WordPress site.

Critical Impact

Attackers can forge requests that execute privileged plugin actions on behalf of authenticated WordPress administrators, leading to potential site compromise.

Affected Products

• ARI Soft Contact Form 7 Connector for WordPress
• All versions from initial release through 1.2.2
• WordPress installations with the plugin active and an authenticated administrative session

Discovery Timeline

• 2024-02-12 - CVE-2024-24884 published to the National Vulnerability Database
• 2026-04-28 - Last updated in the NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-24884

Vulnerability Analysis

The ARI Soft Contact Form 7 Connector plugin fails to validate the origin or authenticity of state-changing HTTP requests. Specifically, the plugin does not enforce WordPress nonce verification or equivalent anti-CSRF token checks on sensitive endpoints. An authenticated user's browser will automatically attach session cookies to any request to the WordPress site. An attacker who lures an administrator to a malicious page can leverage this trust relationship to perform actions inside the plugin without the administrator's consent.

The attack does not require attacker authentication. It does require the victim to be logged in to WordPress and to perform a user action such as clicking a link or loading an attacker-controlled web page.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing CSRF protection on plugin request handlers through version 1.2.2. WordPress provides wp_nonce_field() and check_admin_referer() primitives for this purpose, but the affected plugin code paths do not invoke them on state-changing operations. Without a nonce check, the server cannot distinguish between a legitimate administrator-initiated request and a forged cross-origin request that rides on the administrator's session cookie.

Attack Vector

Exploitation occurs over the network through a victim's browser. An attacker hosts a crafted HTML page containing an auto-submitting form or image tag targeting the vulnerable plugin endpoint on the victim's WordPress site. When an authenticated administrator visits the page, the browser issues the forged request with valid session cookies. The plugin processes the request as authentic, allowing the attacker to alter plugin configuration or trigger plugin-controlled actions. Depending on the action targeted, this can cascade into broader site compromise.

No public proof-of-concept exploit code is referenced in the NVD entry for this CVE. Refer to the Patchstack CSRF Vulnerability Report for vendor-coordinated details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-24884

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected modifications to Contact Form 7 Connector plugin settings or integration configurations
• WordPress access logs showing administrator POST requests with Referer headers pointing to external or unrelated domains
• Plugin actions performed during time windows when administrators were not actively using the admin console
• New or altered outbound integration destinations configured through the plugin

Detection Strategies

• Inspect web server access logs for POST requests to plugin endpoints lacking a same-origin Referer or Origin header
• Audit WordPress activity logs for plugin configuration changes correlated with administrator browsing of external sites
• Compare current plugin settings against known-good baselines to identify unauthorized changes

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable a WordPress audit logging plugin to record administrator-initiated plugin actions with full request context
• Forward web server and WordPress logs to a centralized SIEM for correlation across user sessions and external referrers
• Alert on plugin configuration changes that occur outside approved change windows

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-24884

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the ARI Soft Contact Form 7 Connector plugin to a version newer than 1.2.2 once the vendor publishes a fix
• Restrict WordPress administrator access to dedicated browsers or sessions used solely for site administration
• Review plugin settings and recent activity logs for evidence of unauthorized modification

Patch Information

The NVD entry lists affected versions through 1.2.2. No fixed version is recorded in the supplied references at the time of publication. Consult the Patchstack CSRF Vulnerability Report for the latest remediation guidance from the vendor and Patchstack.

Workarounds

• Deactivate and remove the ARI Soft Contact Form 7 Connector plugin until a patched version is available
• Deploy a Web Application Firewall rule that requires a same-origin Referer or Origin header on plugin admin endpoints
• Enforce short WordPress admin session lifetimes and require re-authentication for sensitive actions
• Train administrators to log out of WordPress before browsing untrusted sites

# Example Apache rule enforcing same-origin Referer on WordPress admin POSTs
<LocationMatch "/wp-admin/">
    SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^https?://your-wordpress-site\.example/" allow_referer
    <RequireAll>
        Require method GET HEAD
        Require env allow_referer
    </RequireAll>
</LocationMatch>