CVE-2024-38770
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 · uneditedImproper Privilege Management vulnerability in Revmakx Backup and Staging by WP Time Capsule allows Privilege Escalation, Authentication Bypass.This issue affects Backup and Staging by WP Time Capsule: from n/a through 1.22.20.
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 confidenceImproper Privilege Management vulnerability in the WP Time Capsule Backup and Staging plugin for WordPress allows attackers to bypass authentication and escalate privileges to administrative levels. The vulnerability affects versions up to and including 1.22.20, with a CVSS 9.8 critical severity indicating trivial exploitability and severe impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
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.
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Verify installed plugin versionNavigate to WordPress admin dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins > Look for 'Backup and Staging by WP Time Capsule' and check the version number displayed under the plugin nameAffected if The version listed is 1.22.20 or any earlier version (e.g., 1.22.19, 1.22.18, etc.)
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Check for unauthorized administrator accountsGo to WordPress admin > Users > All Users. Review the list for any unknown or suspicious accounts with the 'Administrator' role that were created recently or without your knowledgeAffected if There are administrator accounts you did not create, especially with creation dates around or after the time the vulnerability was disclosed
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Review user role modificationsAccess WordPress database via phpMyAdmin or CLI and query the wp_usermeta table for recent changes to user_capabilities or user_level. Look for entries where wp_capibilities contains 'a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}' for unexpected user IDsAffected if There are unexpected grants of administrator privileges to users who previously had lower roles
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Examine access logs for privilege escalation attemptsReview web server access logs (Apache, Nginx) for requests to /wp-json/wp-time-capsule/v1/ or admin-ajax.php?action= that may indicate exploitation attempts, focusing on unusual user-agent strings or requests without proper authenticationAffected if Logs show API calls to the plugin endpoints that succeeded without valid authentication tokens or from unexpected IP addresses
You are affected if the WP Time Capsule plugin version is 1.22.20 or earlier, or if you discover unauthorized administrator accounts or suspicious privilege escalation activity in your WordPress environment.
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 Backup and Staging by WP Time Capsule plugin to the latest version immediately. Audit all user accounts for unauthorized administrative access and review access logs for suspicious activity since the vulnerability disclosure.
- 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-2024-38770 — 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-2024-38770 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
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- 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
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