Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2021-4402 affects the Multiple Roles WordPress plugin through version 1.3.1. A malicious site or link could cause a logged-in administrator to unintentionally submit a role-changing request. The main business risk is unauthorized privilege changes inside WordPress, not data theft or service outage based on the provided CVSS data.
Executive priority
Treat this as a moderate WordPress integrity risk. Prioritize sites where administrators manage sensitive content, customer portals, or privileged user registration workflows. It is not marked as actively exploited in the provided sources.
Technical view
The issue is CWE-352 cross-site request forgery caused by missing or incorrect nonce validation in mu_add_roles_in_signup_meta() and mu_add_roles_in_signup_meta_recently(). The CVSS 3.1 score is 4.3: network reachable, low complexity, no privileges required, administrator interaction required, low integrity impact only.
Likely exposure
Exposure is limited to WordPress sites running the Multiple Roles plugin in versions up to and including 1.3.1. Risk depends on authenticated administrators being tricked into a forged action while logged into WordPress.
Exploitation context
The bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or cited active exploitation. Exploitation requires social engineering of a site administrator and could add additional roles to users through forged requests.
Researcher notes
The affected functions relate to signup metadata role handling. The core weakness is nonce validation failure, so validation should focus on CSRF protection around role-changing flows and on whether the referenced WordPress Trac changeset is present in the deployed plugin code.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory WordPress sites for the Multiple Roles plugin and identify versions up to 1.3.1.
- Upgrade to a vendor-supported version newer than 1.3.1 when confirmed available.
- Disable or remove the plugin where role assignment functionality is not required.
- Review WordPress user-role assignments for unexpected privilege changes.
- Check vendor and WordPress plugin guidance for current remediation details.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether Multiple Roles is installed on each WordPress site.
- Record the installed plugin version and compare it with the vulnerable range.
- Review administrator accounts and recent role changes for unexpected additions.
- Verify role-changing actions include proper nonce validation after remediation.
- Check monitoring or audit logs for suspicious administrator-initiated role changes.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-352: User-session and phishing behavior lookup
Client-side and session-facing weaknesses should be reviewed alongside initial-access and user-execution behaviors. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-4402 mapping review
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Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 4.3 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N2.81.4Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
4.3MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/862fa0c3-c16f-493e-9bf6-92debc0e30f6?source=cveCVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/25-wordpress-plugins-vulnerable-to-csrf-attacks/CVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/more-wordpress-plugins-and-themes-vulnerable-to-csrf-attacks/CVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/multiple-wordpress-plugins-fixed-csrf-vulnerabilities-part-3/CVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/multiple-wordpress-plugins-fixed-csrf-vulnerabilities-part-2/CVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/multiple-wordpress-plugins-fixed-csrf-vulnerabilities-part-1/CVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/multiple-wordpress-plugins-fixed-csrf-vulnerabilities-part-5/CVE reference
- https://blog.nintechnet.com/multiple-wordpress-plugins-fixed-csrf-vulnerabilities-part-4/CVE reference
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&old=2556328%40multiple-roles&new=2556328%40multiple-roles&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=CVE reference
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.