CVE-2024-5939 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-862 (Missing Authorization) found in the GiveWP – Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform for WordPress. The issue arises from the absence of a capability check in the 'setup_wizard' function, which is responsible for rendering the administrative setup wizard pages. This missing authorization allows unauthenticated attackers to remotely access these administrative pages without any credentials or user interaction. The vulnerability affects all versions of the plugin up to and including version 3.13.0. The setup wizard pages may contain sensitive configuration details related to the donation platform, potentially exposing information that could aid further attacks or reconnaissance. However, the vulnerability does not permit attackers to modify data or disrupt service availability. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 5.3 (medium severity), with vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N, indicating network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction required, and limited confidentiality impact only. No public exploits have been reported yet, and no patches are currently linked, suggesting that the vendor may still be addressing the issue. The vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on GiveWP for fundraising and donation management, especially those handling sensitive donor information or operating in regulated environments.

The primary impact of CVE-2024-5939 is unauthorized disclosure of potentially sensitive configuration information from the GiveWP plugin’s setup wizard pages. This exposure could allow attackers to gather intelligence about the donation platform’s setup, which may facilitate further targeted attacks or social engineering campaigns. Although the vulnerability does not allow modification of data or disruption of service, the confidentiality breach can undermine trust and compliance with data protection regulations, especially for organizations handling donor data. Nonprofits, charities, and fundraising organizations using GiveWP may face reputational damage if sensitive internal configuration details are leaked. The vulnerability’s ease of exploitation (no authentication or user interaction required) increases the risk of opportunistic scanning and data harvesting by attackers. However, the lack of known exploits and limited impact on integrity and availability reduce the immediate criticality of the threat. Organizations worldwide using WordPress and GiveWP plugins are potentially affected, with higher risk in countries with large WordPress user bases and active nonprofit sectors.

Organizations should monitor GiveWP vendor communications closely for official patches addressing CVE-2024-5939 and apply updates promptly once available. Until a patch is released, administrators can implement web server or WordPress-level access controls to restrict access to the setup wizard pages, such as IP whitelisting, HTTP authentication, or firewall rules limiting access to trusted administrators only. Reviewing and hardening WordPress user roles and capabilities to ensure minimal exposure of administrative functions is recommended. Security teams should conduct regular scans to detect unauthorized access attempts to the setup wizard URLs and monitor logs for suspicious activity. Employing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with custom rules to block unauthenticated requests targeting the setup wizard endpoints can provide additional protection. Finally, organizations should audit their GiveWP configurations and donor data access policies to ensure no sensitive information is unnecessarily exposed through other plugin features.