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Fencer Intel
high 8.8

CVE-2018-12895 in the critical feed json

WordPress through 4.9.6 allows Author users to execute arbitrary code by leveraging directory traversal in the wp-admin/post.php thumb para…

published 8y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2018-4848

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
62.2%
EPSS 62.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99.1%
public exploits
1
Metasploit

Summary

WordPress through 4.9.6 allows Author users to execute arbitrary code by leveraging directory traversal in the wp-admin/post.php thumb parameter, which is passed to the PHP unlink function and can delete the wp-config.php file. This is related to missing filename validation in the wp-includes/post.php wp_delete_attachment function. The attacker must have capabilities for files and posts that are normally available only to the Author, Editor, and Administrator roles. The attack methodology is to delete wp-config.php and then launch a new installation process to increase the attacker's privileges.

Patch / fix

  • wordpress wordpress 4.9.7
  • wordpress Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.9.7+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12895

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2018-12895 updated cvss 7.2

wordpress: Author users can execute arbitrary code by leveraging directory traversal on the wp-admin/post.php thumb parameter

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (Metasploit auxiliary/scanner/http/wp_arbitrary_file_deletion)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

62.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.1% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.