CVE-2016-6896

Exp

Directory traversal vulnerability in the wp_ajax_update_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress 4.5.3 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service or read certain text files via a .. (dot dot) in the plugin parameter to wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, as demonstrated by /dev/random read operations that deplete the entropy pool.

Published: 2017-01-18 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-6896 is rated High Exploit Risk (81.1/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 38.45%, 98th percentile). 2 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +3.26% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2016-6896

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
40288 exploit_db edb 2016-08-22 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-6896

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 35.18% 38.45% +3.26%
2 2026-03-17 37.10% 35.18% -1.92%
3 2026-03-04 — 37.10% —

Full EPSS history (42 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-6896

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.1 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.8 4.2 [email protected]
5.5 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:N/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 8.0 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-6896

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-6896

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2016-6896 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-2016-6896
ubuntu medium CVE-2016-6896 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 16, ignored 4, DNE 1, needed 1, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-6896

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-6896

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
wordpress wordpress 4.5.3 cpe:2.3:a:wordpress:wordpress:4.5.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-6896

cvelogic Threat Intelligence