What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2011-4898

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.0 v2.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 9.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2012-01-30 · updated 2026-06-16
• Weakness: CWE-200

Description

wp-admin/setup-config.php in the installation component in WordPress 3.3.1 and earlier generates different error messages for requests lacking a dbname parameter depending on whether the MySQL credentials are valid, which makes it easier for remote attackers to conduct brute-force attacks via a series of requests with different uname and pwd parameters. NOTE: the vendor disputes the significance of this issue; also, it is unclear whether providing intentionally vague error messages during installation would be reasonable from a usability perspective

Affected products

• WordPress: through 3.3.1; 0.7, 0.71, 0.72, 0.711, 1.0, 1.0.1 (+66)

References

• http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/bugtraq/2012-01/0150.html
• http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/18417
• https://www.trustwave.com/spiderlabs/advisories/TWSL2012-002.txt
• http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/bugtraq/2012-01/0150.html
• http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/18417
• https://www.trustwave.com/spiderlabs/advisories/TWSL2012-002.txt

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