CVE-2024-3927: Element Pack Elementor Auth Bypass Flaw

CVE-2024-3927 Overview

CVE-2024-3927 affects the Element Pack Elementor Addons plugin for WordPress, developed by bdthemes. The plugin fails to properly validate all variations of administrator email addresses when processing contact form submissions. Unauthenticated attackers can bypass restrictions by appending a +value suffix to the administrator email address, submitting the contact form as though they were the administrator. All versions up to and including 5.6.3 are affected. The flaw maps to CWE-424: Improper Protection of Alternate Path.

Critical Impact
Unauthenticated attackers can bypass administrator email restrictions in the contact form module, enabling form submissions that impersonate privileged senders.

Affected Products

bdthemes Element Pack (Lite) for WordPress, versions up to and including 5.6.3
Deployments using the plugin's contact-form module
WordPress sites relying on admin-email-based submission restrictions

Discovery Timeline

2024-05-22 - CVE-2024-3927 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-3927

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in the plugin's contact form submission handler. The module compares the submitted email address against the administrator email as a literal string. Email address normalization semantics defined in RFC 5233 treat admin+anything@example.com as functionally equivalent to admin@example.com for most mail systems, but the plugin does not account for this. An attacker who knows or guesses the administrator email can submit the form using the plus-addressing variant and defeat the restriction check. Impact is limited to integrity of form submission logic; the flaw does not directly expose data or grant code execution.

Root Cause

The root cause is incomplete input validation in the contact-form module (modules/contact-form/module.php). The comparison logic checks for an exact match against the stored administrator email string instead of canonicalizing both values before comparison. This allows the alternate local-part+tag@domain form to bypass the guard. See the WordPress plugin source snippet for the affected code path.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires only network access to a public contact form rendered by the plugin. The attacker submits the form supplying an email such as administrator+bypass@example.com in place of the administrator email. The plugin's string comparison fails to identify the value as an administrator address, and the submission proceeds. No authentication or user interaction is required. Refer to the Wordfence vulnerability report for additional detail.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-3927

Indicators of Compromise

Contact form submissions whose sender email contains a + character followed by arbitrary text before the @.
Repeated form submissions using variations of the site administrator's local-part.
Web server access log entries showing POST requests to the plugin's contact-form endpoint from unauthenticated clients.

Detection Strategies

Inspect plugin form submission logs and correlate sender addresses against the configured administrator email using canonicalized comparison (strip +tag).
Alert on any form submission where the local-part before + matches an administrative account.
Review WordPress audit logs for outbound emails triggered by contact form submissions that reference admin-like senders.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable verbose logging on the WordPress instance and forward events to a centralized log store for retention and analysis.
Monitor plugin update status and flag WordPress sites running Element Pack versions at or below 5.6.3.
Establish a WAF rule to log or block form submissions containing plus-addressed variants of privileged email accounts.

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-3927

Immediate Actions Required

Update the Element Pack Elementor Addons plugin to a version later than 5.6.3.
Audit all WordPress sites for the presence of bdthemes-element-pack-lite and enumerate installed versions.
Temporarily disable the contact-form module if an immediate update is not feasible.

Patch Information

The vendor addressed the issue in the plugin changeset published at WordPress Plugin Changeset 3089154. Administrators should apply the fixed version through the WordPress plugin update mechanism and verify that the installed version is greater than 5.6.3 after upgrade.

Workarounds

Configure a web application firewall rule to reject contact form submissions containing plus-addressed variants of the administrator email.
Change the WordPress administrator email to an address hosted on a mail system that does not accept +tag suffixes.
Disable public exposure of pages that render the Element Pack contact form until the plugin is patched.

bash

# Verify installed plugin version via WP-CLI
wp plugin get bdthemes-element-pack-lite --field=version

# Update the plugin to the patched release
wp plugin update bdthemes-element-pack-lite

# Deactivate the plugin if an immediate update is not possible
wp plugin deactivate bdthemes-element-pack-lite