CVE-2024-12281
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 · uneditedThe Homey theme for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 2.4.2. This is due to the plugin allowing users who are registering new accounts to set their own role. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to gain elevated privileges by creating an account with the Administrator, Editor, or Shop Manager role.
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 confidenceThe Homey WordPress theme (versions up to 2.4.2) contains a privilege escalation vulnerability in its user registration function. The plugin fails to properly validate or restrict the role parameter during account creation, allowing unauthenticated attackers to register accounts with elevated privileges (Administrator, Editor, or Shop Manager) by manipulating the role field during registration.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
-
Identify installed Homey theme versionNavigate to Appearance > Themes in WordPress admin dashboard. Locate the Homey theme and note the version number displayed. Alternatively, check the style.css file in the theme directory for the 'Version:' header.Affected if The installed version is 2.4.2 or lower.
-
Verify WordPress user registration is enabledGo to Settings > General in WordPress admin. Look for the 'Membership' setting 'Anyone can register' - check if this box is ticked.Affected if User registration is enabled (Anyone can register is checked).
-
Check the default new user role settingGo to Settings > General in WordPress admin. Locate the 'New User Default Role' dropdown. Note which role is selected.Affected if The default role is set to anything other than 'Subscriber' (e.g., Administrator, Editor, Shop Manager, Author).
-
Review user accounts for suspicious high-privilege usersGo to Users > All Users in WordPress admin. Examine the list of users and their roles. Look for unfamiliar accounts with Administrator, Editor, or Shop Manager roles that were created recently.Affected if There are Administrator, Editor, or Shop Manager accounts that you did not intentionally create, especially if created recently.
-
Inspect registration form role parameter handlingExamine the theme's registration template files (typically registration.php or functions related to user_registration). Look for code that processes the 'role' POST parameter without sanitization or validation against allowed roles.Affected if The code accepts and applies a role parameter from user input without validating it against an allowlist.
Your environment is affected if the Homey theme version is 2.4.2 or lower AND user registration is enabled with a default role higher than Subscriber, or if unauthorized admin-level accounts exist.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataUpdate the Homey theme to version 2.4.3 or later which includes proper role validation. Until patched, disable user registration or implement server-side controls to restrict the role parameter to only default Subscriber roles during registration.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,408.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-12281 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-12281 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.
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.
- 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