BuddybossApplication

CVE-2021-44692

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-01-26
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 1.8.0 or later.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
BuddyBoss Platform through 1.8.0 allows remote attackers to obtain the email address of each user. When creating a new user, it generates a Unique ID for their profile. This UID is their private email address with symbols removed and periods replaced with hyphens. For example. [email protected] would become /members/johndoeexample-com and [email protected] would become /members/jo-testexample-com. The members list is available to everyone and (in a default configuration) often without authentication. It is therefore trivial to collect a list of email addresses.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

BuddyBoss Platform through 1.8.0 exposes user email addresses through a predictable Unique ID (UID) generation mechanism. The UID is derived from the user's email address by removing symbols and replacing periods with hyphens. Since the members list is publicly accessible by default, attackers can trivially enumerate and reconstruct email addresses from these UIDs.

MitigationRestrict access to the members list to authenticated users only, or modify the UID generation algorithm to use random/arbitrary values instead of derivations from email addresses.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
BuddybossApplication
Affected:<= 1.8.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check the installed BuddyBoss Platform version
    Navigate to BuddyBoss > Platform in the admin dashboard and locate the version number displayed, or check the plugin header in the codebase if direct file access is available
    Affected if The installed version is 1.8.0 or any earlier version (1.x.x <= 1.8.0)
  2. Verify members list visibility settings
    Go to BuddyBoss > Settings > Members in the admin panel and examine whether the members directory is set to be visible to the public (all visitors) versus restricted to logged-in users only
    Affected if The members list is accessible to unauthenticated/public visitors without requiring login
  3. Confirm the UID generation uses email-derived values
    Create a test account or examine an existing user profile in the members directory - observe whether the user identifier in the URL or profile follows the pattern of the email address with symbols removed and periods replaced by hyphens (e.g., [email protected] becomes example-com)
    Affected if User identifiers in the members directory URLs or display are derived directly from the user's email address by removing symbols and replacing periods with hyphens

If running BuddyBoss Platform version 1.8.0 or earlier AND the members list is publicly accessible to unauthenticated visitors, the environment is affected by this CVE as email addresses can be trivially reconstructed from the exposed user identifiers.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 1.8.0
Interim mitigation

Restrict access to the members list to authenticated users only, or modify the UID generation algorithm to use random/arbitrary values instead of derivations from email addresses.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

BuddyBoss Platform 1.8.1 or later

  1. Check current BuddyBoss Platform version in WordPress admin under BuddyBoss > Helper

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Buddyboss Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
12.0 hours of engineering $2,130
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Scan for this in your stack

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dbcve dependency scanner

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-44692 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data