CVE-2013-2200 in WordPress
Summary
by MITRE
WordPress before 3.5.2 does not properly check the capabilities of roles, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended restrictions on publishing and authorship reassignment via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/03/2022
WordPress versions prior to 3.5.2 contained a critical access control vulnerability that fundamentally undermined the platform's user role and capability management system. This flaw existed within the core authorization mechanisms that govern how different user roles interact with content publishing and authorship functions. The vulnerability stemmed from insufficient validation of user capabilities during content creation and modification processes, allowing authenticated users to exploit gaps in the permission checking framework. Attackers could leverage this weakness to perform unauthorized actions that should have been restricted to higher-privileged user roles, effectively bypassing the intended security boundaries that separate different levels of user access within the WordPress ecosystem.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability occurred through unspecified vectors that exploited the underlying capability checking logic in WordPress's user management system. The flaw specifically affected how the platform validated whether users possessed the necessary permissions to publish content or reassign authorship to other users. This issue manifested when WordPress evaluated user capabilities during content operations, failing to properly enforce role-based access controls that should have prevented lower-privileged users from performing elevated actions. The vulnerability was particularly dangerous because it operated at the core level of WordPress's authorization system, making it difficult to detect and isolate through standard security scanning mechanisms. Security researchers identified that the flaw allowed attackers to manipulate content publishing workflows and authorship assignments without proper authentication or authorization, effectively creating a backdoor for privilege escalation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extended far beyond simple unauthorized access, as it enabled attackers to compromise content integrity and potentially manipulate the entire content management workflow. Remote authenticated users could exploit this weakness to publish content without proper approval processes, reassign authorship to arbitrary users, or modify existing content in ways that would normally be restricted to administrators or editors. This capability posed significant risks to website owners, as it could lead to content tampering, unauthorized publication of sensitive materials, and potential data integrity violations. The vulnerability particularly affected multi-user environments where different roles were expected to have distinct permissions, as it allowed attackers to circumvent the role-based access control that WordPress was designed to enforce. Organizations using WordPress versions before 3.5.2 faced the risk of content manipulation, reputational damage, and potential compliance violations due to the unauthorized modification of published materials.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization issues in software systems, and represents a classic case of insufficient access control validation. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to privilege escalation techniques and persistence mechanisms that attackers can use to maintain access to compromised systems. The security implications extend to both the immediate access control breach and the broader implications for content management security. Organizations should have implemented immediate mitigations including upgrading to WordPress version 3.5.2 or later, which contained the necessary patches to address the capability checking flaws. Additional defensive measures included reviewing and hardening user role configurations, implementing additional monitoring for unusual content publishing activities, and ensuring proper security auditing of user capabilities. The vulnerability demonstrated the critical importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches and the potential consequences of delayed patch management in content management systems. Security professionals recommended conducting comprehensive assessments of user roles and capabilities to identify and remediate similar weaknesses in other WordPress installations and related systems.