VULNERABILITY INTELLIGENCE

CVE-2016-6896

CVSS score7.1 HIGH
EPSS probability38.07%
CISA KEVNot currently listed
Published2017-01-18
Last modified2026-06-17
CVSS vectorCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H

Description

Directory traversal vulnerability in the wp_ajax_update_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress 4.5.3 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service or read certain text files via a .. (dot dot) in the plugin parameter to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, as demonstrated by /dev/random read operations that deplete the entropy pool.

Weakness classification

  • CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Primary references