Rate Star Review Vote <= 1.6.4 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Post Modification via 'rating_id' Parameter
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.6.5
- Affected Plugin
- Rate Star Review Vote – AJAX Reviews, Votes, Star Ratings
- Affected Version
<= 1.6.4- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-862 · Missing Authorization
- CVE
CVE-2026-4301
At a glance
CVE-2026-4301 is a medium-severity Missing Authorization vulnerability in the Rate Star Review Vote WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.6.4. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 1.6.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed May 2026, reported by cpforensic.
Vulnerability Overview
The Rate Star Review Vote - AJAX Reviews, Votes, Star Ratings plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Missing Authorization in all versions up to and including 1.6.4. The vwrsr_review() AJAX handler lacks both capability checks and nonce verification. The only access control is an is_user_logged_in() check. When the 'form' parameter is set to 'update', the function takes an arbitrary post ID from the user-supplied 'rating_id' GET parameter, sets it as the post ID in the update array, and passes it directly to wp_update_post(). This overwrites the target post's title, content, author (changed to the attacker's user ID), post_type (changed to the plugin's custom post type, default 'review'), and status. Additionally, update_post_meta() is called on the arbitrary post ID at lines 758-763, modifying its metadata. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to modify the title, content, author, post type, and metadata of arbitrary posts and pages on the site via the 'rating_id' parameter, effectively allowing full post content takeover.
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 interaction from a victim user.
CWE-862: Missing Authorization
Rate Star Review Vote <= 1.6.4 carries this weakness at form, and reaching it takes an account at Subscriber level or above. A missing authorization check means a function is reachable by anyone who can reach the endpoint, because the code never asks whether the caller is allowed to perform the action.
Any user who can reach the endpoint gets to run an action reserved for higher-privileged roles, from reading protected data to changing settings or content. For Rate Star Review Vote the fix is 1.6.5: builds <= 1.6.4 are affected, anything from 1.6.5 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.6.5, 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: Rate Star Review Vote 1.6.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Rate Star Review Vote – AJAX Reviews, Votes, Star Ratings
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C