Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)Weakness · CWE-352

CVE-2024-56204

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-12-31
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges

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
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in yonisink Sinking Dropdowns sinking-dropdowns allows Privilege Escalation.This issue affects Sinking Dropdowns: from n/a through <= 1.25.

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 · moderate confidence

CSRF vulnerability in the Sinking Dropdowns WordPress plugin allows attackers to craft malicious requests that trick authenticated administrators into performing unintended actions, potentially leading to privilege escalation by modifying user roles or capabilities.

MitigationImplement anti-CSRF tokens (nonces) on all state-changing operations and enforce proper capability checks before allowing privilege modifications.

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
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/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 checks

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

  1. Verify Sinking Dropdowns plugin is installed
    Navigate to WordPress admin > Plugins and confirm 'Sinking Dropdowns' appears in the installed plugins list, or check /wp-content/plugins/ directory for sinking-dropdowns folder
    Affected if Plugin folder exists in the plugins directory
  2. Check installed plugin version
    In WordPress admin > Plugins, find Sinking Dropdowns and note the version number displayed, or open the main plugin PHP file and look for the 'Version' header in the plugin comment block
    Affected if Version number matches or falls within any affected version range (compare to official CVE advisory)
  3. Identify state-changing admin actions
    Review plugin source code in /wp-content/plugins/sinking-dropdowns/ for functions that modify user data: search for 'update_user_meta', 'add_role', 'remove_role', 'capabilities', 'role' parameters, or form submissions with action parameters like 'update_role' or 'modify_capabilities'
    Affected if Plugin contains functions that modify user roles or capabilities without first verifying intent
  4. Verify nonce protection on privilege operations
    In the identified role/capability modification code, search for nonce verification calls: look for 'wp_verify_nonce', 'check_admin_referer', or 'check_nonce' functions immediately before any user role or capability changes
    Affected if No nonce verification is performed before executing privilege modification code (missing nonce check indicates vulnerability)
  5. Confirm admin action hooks are unprotected
    Examine plugin hook registrations (add_action calls) for admin-side operations that change user roles; verify that hooks like 'admin_init', 'wp_ajax_*', or custom form handlers include capability checks using 'current_user_can' before allowing role modifications
    Affected if Admin hooks lack current_user_can() capability validation before changing roles or capabilities

If the Sinking Dropdowns plugin is installed and its role/capability modification functions lack nonce verification and capability checks, the environment is vulnerable to CVE-2024-56204 CSRF attacks.

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.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Implement anti-CSRF tokens (nonces) on all state-changing operations and enforce proper capability checks before allowing privilege modifications.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing5.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
17.0 hours of engineering $2,970
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Scan for this in your stack

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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-2024-56204 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
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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