CVE-2006-4028

WordPress Core < 2.0.4 - Privilege Escalation

2006-07-09 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.0.4
Affected Core: WordPress 2.0
Affected Version: < 2.0.4
CVSS: 9.8Critical
Weakness type: CWE-285 · Improper Authorization
CVE: CVE-2006-4028

At a glance

CVE-2006-4028 is a critical-severity Improper Authorization vulnerability in the WordPress 2.0 WordPress release line, affecting < 2.0.4. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.0.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2006.

Vulnerability Overview

Multiple unspecified vulnerabilities in WordPress before 2.0.4 have unknown impact and remote attack vectors. NOTE: due to lack of details, it is not clear how these issues are different from CVE-2006-3389 and CVE-2006-3390, although it is likely that 2.0.4 addresses an unspecified issue related to "Anyone can register" functionality (user registration for guests).

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-285: Improper Authorization

Reaching this weakness in WordPress 2.0 < 2.0.4 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Improper authorization means a permission check exists but does not cover the case being exercised, so a caller who is allowed to do one thing is allowed to do a neighbouring thing as well.

A lower-privileged account performs an action reserved for a higher one, which on a multi-author or membership site means an ordinary user reaching administrative behaviour. For WordPress 2.0 the fix is 2.0.4: builds < 2.0.4 are affected, anything from 2.0.4 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.0.4, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: updating to 2.0.4 is the step that ends it.

Login Security
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2006-4028 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/2ab6e751-dc23-442f-b22e-ee41fd6651f6 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2006-4028

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WordPress 2.0

CVSS Vector

9.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh

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