CVE-2018-20853

An issue was discovered in the MailPoet Newsletters (aka wysija-newsletters) plugin before 2.8.2 for WordPress. The plugin is vulnerable to SPAM attacks.

Published: 2019-11-06 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2018-20853 is rated Low Risk (33.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.28%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-20853

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 2025-03-30 12.21% 0.28% -11.93%
2 2025-03-29 0.28% 12.21% +11.93%
3 2025-03-24 0.28%

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-20853

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N 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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 1.4 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N 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:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-20853

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-20853

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mailpoet mailpoet_newsletters < 2.8.2 cpe:2.3:a:mailpoet:mailpoet_newsletters:*:*:*:*:*:wordpress:*:*

References for CVE-2018-20853

URL Tags
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wysija-newsletters/#developers Release Notes Vendor Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence