CVE-2012-4421

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.0 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2012-09-14 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

The create_post function in wp-includes/class-wp-atom-server.php in WordPress before 3.4.2 does not perform a capability check, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended access restrictions and publish new posts by leveraging the Contributor role and using the Atom Publishing Protocol (aka AtomPub) feature.

Affected products

WordPress: through 3.4.1; 0.71, 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.1.1, 1.2 (+80)

References

http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.4.2
http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?old_path=%2Ftags%2F3.4.1&old=21780&new_path=%2Ftags%2F3.4.2&new=21780#file2
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/13/4
http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.4.2
http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?old_path=%2Ftags%2F3.4.1&old=21780&new_path=%2Ftags%2F3.4.2&new=21780#file2
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/13/4

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