CVE-2026-39787 in Social Photo Feed Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 10/06/2026
Unauthenticated Broken Access Control in 10Web Social Photo Feed <= 1.4.35 versions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/06/2026
The vulnerability identified within the 10Web Social Photo Feed plugin, specifically affecting versions up to and including 1.4.35, represents a critical failure in access control mechanisms that allows unauthenticated attackers to perform unauthorized actions on the target WordPress installation. This flaw is categorized under CWE-287, which describes Improper Authentication, and more broadly falls under CWE-639 for Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key if specific identifiers are manipulated, or CWE-862 for Missing Authorization when no check exists at all. The core issue stems from the plugin's failure to verify whether a user making an API request possesses valid administrative privileges before executing sensitive operations. In modern web application security frameworks such as OWASP Top 10, this is classified under A01: Broken Access Control, highlighting its prevalence and severity in contemporary software development practices where session management and permission checks are often overlooked during rapid deployment cycles.
Technically, the vulnerability likely resides in one or more AJAX endpoints exposed by the plugin that handle administrative tasks such as managing social media feeds, updating settings, or deleting content. These endpoints typically require a nonce for CSRF protection but may lack robust server-side validation of user roles and capabilities. An attacker can craft malicious HTTP requests using tools like curl or Burp Suite to interact with these endpoints directly from an unauthenticated state. By bypassing the intended authentication layer, the attacker gains the ability to execute functions that are reserved exclusively for users with administrator-level access rights. This architectural weakness effectively neutralizes the security boundary between public-facing visitors and privileged administrators, turning a standard content management system into a compromised environment where any internet user can assume control over critical administrative features.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe, as it enables full site compromise when combined with other common WordPress weaknesses or through direct manipulation of plugin data structures. An attacker could potentially delete all social media feed configurations, inject malicious scripts via stored XSS payloads if input sanitization is also insufficient, or alter database entries to redirect users to phishing sites. Furthermore, because the 10Web Social Photo Feed integrates external services and displays dynamic content, compromising it can lead to defacement of the website's public-facing pages, damaging the organization's reputation and trustworthiness. In a broader context, this vulnerability serves as an entry point for further exploitation within the WordPress ecosystem, allowing attackers to escalate privileges, install backdoors, or pivot into other parts of the network if the web server is accessible from internal systems.
Mitigation strategies must prioritize immediate remediation through software updates and defensive configuration changes. The primary solution is to upgrade the 10Web Social Photo Feed plugin to version 1.4.36 or later, where the developers have presumably implemented proper capability checks using WordPress functions such as current_user_can('manage_options') before processing any administrative requests. For organizations unable to update immediately due to compatibility constraints, temporary mitigations include restricting access to wp-admin and related AJAX endpoints via Web Application Firewall rules that block unauthenticated POST requests to known vulnerable paths. Additionally, enforcing strict Content Security Policy headers can help mitigate potential cross-site scripting attacks that might be chained with this vulnerability. Regular security audits and the adoption of secure coding standards that mandate explicit authorization checks for every privileged action are essential preventive measures against such broken access control flaws in future development cycles.