My Calendar <= 3.8.7 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation to 'mcs' Parameter via Reflected Shortcode Injection into 'above' Attribute

Summary

The My Calendar – Accessible Event Manager plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 3.8.7. The public `mcs` GET parameter is reflected into post content unsanitized before WordPress core's `do_shortcode` filter runs, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to inject a nested `[my_calendar above=...]` shortcode; `mc_generate_calendar_nav()` then splits the `above` attribute on commas and dispatches each element via `call_user_func()` with no authentication, authorization, or callable allowlist check. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to invoke arbitrary loaded PHP functions, enabling a call chain in which the shortcode `$params` array is passed to `edit_user()` — which PHP coerces to integer `1` as the `$user_id` argument — overwriting the credentials of the initial Administrator account (user ID 1) and granting the attacker full wp-admin access. Exploitation is trivially reachable via the plugin's auto-generated `/my-calendar/` page, which is publicly accessible by default upon plugin activation.

Affected versions

• joedolson My Calendar – Accessible Event Manager

  through 3.4.24; From 3.5 · through 3.5.21; From 3.6 · through 3.6.17; From 3.7 · through 3.7.17; From 3.8 · through 3.8.7

References 8