CVE-2024-37467: Hestia WordPress Theme CSRF Vulnerability

CVE-2024-37467 Overview

CVE-2024-37467 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability [CWE-352] affecting the themeisle Hestia WordPress theme. The flaw impacts all Hestia versions up to and including 3.1.2. An attacker can trick an authenticated user into submitting a forged request that performs unintended actions in the theme's context. Exploitation requires user interaction, such as clicking a malicious link or visiting an attacker-controlled page. The vulnerability was published to the National Vulnerability Database on January 2, 2025.

Critical Impact
An attacker can leverage a victim's authenticated session to trigger state-changing actions in the Hestia theme, resulting in limited integrity impact on the affected WordPress site.

Affected Products

themeisle Hestia WordPress theme versions up to and including 3.1.2
WordPress installations using the vulnerable Hestia theme
Sites where administrators or privileged users interact with untrusted content

Discovery Timeline

2025-01-02 - CVE-2024-37467 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-37467

Vulnerability Analysis

The Hestia theme fails to enforce anti-CSRF protections on one or more state-changing request handlers. WordPress provides nonce-based CSRF mitigation through wp_nonce_field() and check_admin_referer(), but the affected handlers do not validate a valid nonce on incoming requests. As a result, a browser holding an authenticated Hestia session automatically attaches its authentication cookies to attacker-crafted requests. The request executes with the victim's privileges without their knowledge.

The vulnerability requires user interaction, typically luring a logged-in user to a malicious page. The impact scope is limited to integrity, with no direct confidentiality or availability consequences reported. See the Patchstack Hestia Theme CSRF Vulnerability advisory for reference details.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing or improperly validated CSRF tokens on request handlers in Hestia versions through 3.1.2. Without server-side verification of a per-request token bound to the user's session, the theme cannot distinguish between requests intentionally issued by the user and requests forged by third-party sites. This maps directly to CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery.

Attack Vector

Exploitation follows the standard CSRF pattern. An attacker hosts a page containing an HTML form or JavaScript that auto-submits a request to a vulnerable Hestia endpoint on the target WordPress site. When a victim with an active Hestia session visits the attacker's page, the browser submits the request with valid session cookies. The Hestia handler processes the request because no nonce check rejects it. The action executes under the victim's identity, producing limited integrity impact.

No public proof-of-concept or exploit code is currently listed for CVE-2024-37467.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-37467

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected configuration or content changes on WordPress sites running Hestia 3.1.2 or earlier
Web server access logs showing POST requests to Hestia handlers with external Referer headers
Administrative actions performed shortly after a privileged user visited an unrelated third-party site
Absence of _wpnonce or _wp_http_referer parameters on state-changing Hestia requests

Detection Strategies

Inspect WordPress access logs for state-changing requests to theme endpoints where the Referer header points to an unaffiliated domain
Review WordPress audit logs for unexpected setting or content modifications correlated with user browsing sessions
Deploy a web application firewall rule that flags POST requests to Hestia handlers lacking a valid nonce parameter

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable a WordPress activity logging plugin to record administrative actions with source IP and referer context
Alert on outbound-referer POST requests reaching /wp-admin/ endpoints associated with Hestia
Monitor for spikes in failed nonce validations after applying the patched Hestia release

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-37467

Immediate Actions Required

Upgrade the Hestia theme to a version later than 3.1.2 that addresses CVE-2024-37467
Audit recent administrative changes on affected WordPress sites for unauthorized modifications
Require administrators to log out of WordPress sessions before browsing untrusted sites
Enforce least-privilege roles so non-administrative users cannot invoke sensitive Hestia actions

Patch Information

Refer to the Patchstack Hestia Theme CSRF Vulnerability advisory for the fixed release information. Apply the vendor-supplied update through the WordPress theme updater or by replacing the theme files with the patched version.

Workarounds

Deploy a WAF rule that requires a valid _wpnonce parameter on state-changing Hestia requests
Restrict access to /wp-admin/ by source IP where operationally feasible
Configure the SameSite=Lax or SameSite=Strict attribute on WordPress authentication cookies to reduce cross-site request risk
Temporarily switch to an unaffected theme until the patched Hestia release is applied

bash

# Configuration example: enforce SameSite on WordPress auth cookies via wp-config.php
// Add to wp-config.php before the "That's all, stop editing!" comment
@ini_set('session.cookie_samesite', 'Strict');

// Example nginx rule to block Hestia POST requests missing a nonce parameter
// location ~* /wp-admin/admin-ajax\.php {
//     if ($request_method = POST) {
//         if ($args !~* "_wpnonce=") { return 403; }
//     }
// }