CVE-2019-20043

In in wp-includes/rest-api/endpoints/class-wp-rest-posts-controller.php in WordPress 3.7 to 5.3.0, authenticated users who do not have the rights to publish a post are able to mark posts as sticky or unsticky via the REST API. For example, the contributor role does not have such rights, but this allowed them to bypass that. This has been patched in WordPress 5.3.1, along with all the previous WordPress versions from 3.7 to 5.3 via a minor release.

Published: 2019-12-27 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-20043 is rated Moderate Risk (47.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.48%). EPSS rose +1.31% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

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-2019-20043

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 1.17% 2.48% +1.31%
2 2026-03-04 1.50% 1.17% -0.33%
3 2026-03-01 — 1.50% —

Full EPSS history (39 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-20043

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/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: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: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.
 2.8 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-2019-20043

OS Trackers for CVE-2019-20043

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2019-20043 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-2019-20043
ubuntu medium CVE-2019-20043 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (wordpress), 18 status rows across 18 suites (bionic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 12, ignored 2, needs-triage 2, DNE 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2019-20043

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-20043

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
wordpress wordpress >= 3.7, < 5.3.1 cpe:2.3:a:wordpress:wordpress:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-20043

cvelogic Threat Intelligence