The wp_ajax_update_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress before 4.6 makes a get_plugin_data call before checking the update_plugins capability, which allows remote authenticated users to bypass intended read-access restrictions via the plugin parameter to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, a related issue to CVE-2016-6896.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2016-10148 is rated Moderate Risk (44/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.64%). Core evidence: EPSS rose +1.19% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-06-15 | 0.45% | 1.64% | +1.19% |
| 2 | 2025-04-13 | 0.49% | 0.45% | -0.04% |
| 3 | 2025-03-30 | — | 0.49% | — |
Full EPSS history (9 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.3 | 3.0 | MEDIUM |
|
2.8 | 1.4 | [email protected] |
| 4.0 | 2.0 | MEDIUM |
|
8.0 | 2.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2016-10148 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (wordpress), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-10148 |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2016-10148 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (wordpress), 23 status rows across 23 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, precise, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial, yakkety, zesty): not-affected 19, DNE 1, ignored 1, needed 1, released 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-10148 |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/08/20/1 | Mailing List Third Party Advisory |
| http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/96847 | |
| https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/38168 | Issue Tracking Patch |
| https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37490 | Issue Tracking |
| https://sumofpwn.nl/advisory/2016/path_traversal_vulnerability_in_wordpress_core_ajax_handlers.html | Technical Description Third Party Advisory |