What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2008-5695

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.5 v2.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 12.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2008-12-19 · updated 2026-06-16
• Weakness: CWE-20

Description

wp-admin/options.php in WordPress MU before 1.3.2, and WordPress 2.3.2 and earlier, does not properly validate requests to update an option, which allows remote authenticated users with manage_options and upload_files capabilities to execute arbitrary code by uploading a PHP script and adding this script's pathname to active_plugins.

Affected products

• WordPress: through 2.3.2
• Wordpress Mu: before 1.3.2 — fixed in 1.3.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Wordpress Mu 1.3.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=7534&page&replies=1
• http://secunia.com/advisories/28789
• http://securityreason.com/securityalert/4798
• http://www.buayacorp.com/files/wordpress/wordpress-mu-options-overwrite.html
• http://www.buayacorp.com/files/wordpress/wp-blog-option-overwrite.txt
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/27633
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/5066
• http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=7534&page&replies=1
• http://secunia.com/advisories/28789
• http://securityreason.com/securityalert/4798
• http://www.buayacorp.com/files/wordpress/wordpress-mu-options-overwrite.html
• http://www.buayacorp.com/files/wordpress/wp-blog-option-overwrite.txt

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