In WordPress through 4.9.2, unauthenticated attackers can cause a denial of service (resource consumption) by using the large list of regis…

published 2018-02-06 8y ago modified 2026-06-17 4mo ago also EUVD-2018-18146

cvss: 7.5; version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 72.7%; EPSS 72.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99.4%
public exploits: 1; Exploit-DB

In WordPress through 4.9.2, unauthenticated attackers can cause a denial of service (resource consumption) by using the large list of registered .js files (from wp-includes/script-loader.php) to construct a series of requests to load every file many times.

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Timeline

2018-02-05 First public exploit (EDB-43968)
2018-02-06 Published

Exploit prediction

72.67% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.4% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

EDB-43968 WordPress Core - 'load-scripts.php' Denial of Service dos, 2018-02-05
baraktawily.blogspot.fr https://baraktawily.blogspot.fr/2018/02/how-to-dos-29-of-world-wide-websites.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
thehackernews.com https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/wordpress-dos-exploit.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
github.com https://github.com/UltimateHackers/Shiva referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.0	7.5	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	2.0	5.0	AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Technology feeds

WordPress rss critical rss

References

exploit-db.com /exploits/43968/
exploit, third-party-advisory, vdb-entry
baraktawily.blogspot.fr /2018/02/how-to-dos-29-of-world-wide-websites.html
exploit, issue-tracking, third-party-advisory
thehackernews.com /2018/02/wordpress-dos-exploit.html
exploit, third-party-advisory
github.com /UltimateHackers/Shiva
exploit, third-party-advisory
securityfocus.com /bid/103060
vdb-entry, third-party-advisory
wpvulndb.com /vulnerabilities/9021
third-party-advisory
securitytracker.com /id/1040347
vdb-entry, third-party-advisory
github.com /WazeHell/CVE-2018-6389
third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2018-6389
NVD CVE-2018-6389

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.