SchedulePress <= 5.0.4 - Insufficient Authorization to Authenticated (Contributor+) Arbitrary Post Modifications
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 5.0.5
- Affected Plugin
- SchedulePress – Auto Post & Publish, Auto Social Share, Schedule Posts with Editorial Calendar & Missed Schedule Post Publisher
- Affected Version
<= 5.0.4- CVSS
- 4.3Medium
- Weakness type
- CWE-285 · Improper Authorization
- CVE
CVE pending
At a glance
This record tracks a medium-severity Improper Authorization vulnerability in the SchedulePress WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.0.4. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Contributor level or above. The issue is fixed in version 5.0.5; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2023.
Vulnerability Overview
The SchedulePress – Best Editorial Calendar, Missed Schedule & Auto Social Share plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data due to improper capability checks on several REST API endpoints in all versions up to, and including, 5.0.4. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to edit other's posts and delete other's posts.
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-285: Improper Authorization
Reaching this weakness in SchedulePress <= 5.0.4 takes an account at Contributor level or above. 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 SchedulePress the fix is 5.0.5: builds <= 5.0.4 are affected, anything from 5.0.5 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 5.0.5, 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: SchedulePress 5.0.5 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in SchedulePress – Auto Post & Publish, Auto Social Share, Schedule Posts with Editorial Calendar & Missed Schedule Post Publisher
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