CVE-2021-21389BuddyPress privilege escalation via REST API
- 8.1HighCVSS base score
- 14.8%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 3.3% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
BuddyPress is an open source WordPress plugin to build a community site. In releases of BuddyPress from 5.0.0 before 7.2.1 it's possible for a non-privileged, regular user to obtain administrator rights by exploiting an issue in the REST API members endpoint. The vulnerability has been fixed in BuddyPress 7.2.1. Existing installations of the plugin should be updated to this version to mitigate the issue.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Nuclei template for it.
Show the exploits1
Nuclei templates1 template
- BuddyPress REST API <7.2.1 - Privilege Escalation/Remote Code Execution (Nuclei template) (opens in a new tab)
http/cves/2021/CVE-2021-21389.yamlSeverity high
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Published
- 3 years later
· 3 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High8.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High8.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 14.8% · top 3.3% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.1.
Affected products
- affected >= 5.0.0, < 7.2.1
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- Packagistbuddypress/buddypressGHSA-m6j4-8r7p-wpp3 (opens in a new tab)
References
References3
- https://github.com/buddypress/BuddyPress/security/advisories/GHSA-m6j4-8r7p-wpp3 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://buddypress.org/2021/03/buddypress-7-2-1-security-release/ (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://codex.buddypress.org/releases/version-7-2-1/ (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2021-2224 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-m6j4-8r7p-wpp3 (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2021-21389)Record last updated .