CVE-2026-14305 in WP Delicious Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 07/30/2026
The WP Delicious WordPress plugin before 1.10.2 does not perform an authorization check on one of its AJAX actions, allowing unauthenticated users to modify limited post metadata (a like counter and an associated identifier list) on arbitrary posts, including inflating the counter and growing the stored metadata without bound.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/30/2026
The WP Delicious WordPress plugin vulnerability represents a critical authorization bypass flaw that undermines the security model of content management systems. This issue affects versions prior to 10.2 and demonstrates how seemingly minor functionality can create significant operational risks when proper access controls are absent. The vulnerability specifically targets AJAX endpoints within the plugin's architecture, exposing sensitive metadata modification capabilities to unauthorized actors. From a cybersecurity perspective, this represents a classic example of insufficient authorization checks that can be exploited to manipulate content attributes without proper authentication or privilege validation.
The technical implementation of this flaw stems from the absence of proper capability checks within the plugin's AJAX handler functions. When users interact with the Delicious plugin's interface, certain actions are processed through AJAX endpoints that should require authenticated access and appropriate user permissions. However, the plugin fails to verify whether the requesting user possesses sufficient privileges to modify post metadata, particularly the like counter and identifier list associated with posts. This oversight creates an attack surface where any unauthenticated user can submit requests to modify these specific metadata fields across arbitrary posts within the WordPress installation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple metadata manipulation to potentially enable broader security implications within content management systems. Attackers can exploit this flaw to inflate like counters on posts, which may affect social engagement metrics, content visibility algorithms, or even influence search engine optimization rankings. Additionally, the ability to grow stored metadata without bound creates potential denial-of-service conditions where database storage consumption increases uncontrollably. The vulnerability also raises concerns about data integrity and audit trail manipulation, as unauthorized modifications can occur without proper logging or tracking mechanisms. This type of issue commonly maps to CWE-863 (Insufficient Authorization) and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078 (Valid Accounts) when attackers leverage compromised accounts or exploit the authorization bypass to gain elevated privileges.
The mitigation approach for this vulnerability requires immediate plugin updates to version 1.10.2 or later, which implements proper authorization checks for all AJAX actions within the Delicious plugin. System administrators should also conduct comprehensive security audits of all installed WordPress plugins to identify similar authorization bypass vulnerabilities. Additional protective measures include implementing Web Application Firewall rules to monitor and restrict suspicious AJAX requests, establishing proper monitoring of metadata modification activities, and ensuring that all plugin endpoints verify user capabilities before processing sensitive operations. Organizations should consider implementing principle of least privilege configurations for WordPress plugin access rights and regularly review plugin permissions to prevent unauthorized modifications across content management systems.