WordPress before 5.1.1 does not properly filter comment content, leading to Remote Code Execution by unauthenticated users in a default configuration. This occurs because CSRF protection is mishandled, and because Search Engine Optimization of A elements is performed incorrectly, leading to XSS. The XSS results in administrative access, which allows arbitrary changes to .php files. This is related to wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php and wp-includes/comment.php.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2019-9787 is rated High Exploit Risk (82.8/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 81.02%, 99th percentile). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: 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.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
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 | 2026-04-01 | 83.10% | 81.02% | -2.08% |
| 2 | 2026-03-08 | 85.08% | 83.10% | -1.98% |
| 3 | 2026-03-04 | — | 85.08% | — |
Full EPSS history (64 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.8 | 3.0 | HIGH |
|
2.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| 6.8 | 2.0 | MEDIUM |
|
8.6 | 6.4 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2019-9787 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-2019-9787 |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2019-9787 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (wordpress), 19 status rows across 19 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 14, needs-triage 2, DNE 1, ignored 1, released 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2019-9787 |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/107411 | Third Party Advisory VDB Entry |
| https://blog.ripstech.com/2019/wordpress-csrf-to-rce/ | Exploit Third Party Advisory |
| https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/0292de60ec78c5a44956765189403654fe4d080b | Patch Third Party Advisory |
| https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00044.html | |
| https://wordpress.org/news/2019/03/wordpress-5-1-1-security-and-maintenance-release/ | Release Notes Vendor Advisory |
| https://wordpress.org/support/wordpress-version/version-5-1-1/ | Release Notes Vendor Advisory |
| https://wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/9230 | |
| https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677 |