CVE-2019-9978

Exp

The social-warfare plugin before 3.5.3 for WordPress has stored XSS via the wp-admin/admin-post.php?swp_debug=load_options swp_url parameter, as exploited in the wild in March 2019. This affects Social Warfare and Social Warfare Pro.

Published: 2019-03-24 Last update: 2025-11-07 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-9978 is rated Active Exploitation (79.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 73.54%, 99th percentile). CISA KEV confirms active exploitation (added 2021-11-03) affecting WordPress / Social Warfare Plugin. cross-site scripting (CWE-79) Unauthenticated remote administrative access may be possible. The CISA remediation deadline has passed—treat as an emergency patch priority.

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

CISA KEV Record for CVE-2019-9978

Name: WordPress Social Warfare Plugin Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability · CISA KEV detail

Exploit added: 2021-11-03

Action due: 2022-05-03

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2019-9978

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
52346 exploit_db edb 2025-06-26 Exploit-DB ↗
46794 exploit_db edb 2019-05-03 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
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Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2019-9978

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 88.13% 73.54% -14.58%
2 2026-06-12 88.71% 88.13% -0.58%
3 2026-06-01 — 88.71% —

Full EPSS history (44 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-9978

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
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 2.7 [email protected]
6.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
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 2.7 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
4.3 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/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:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
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.
 8.6 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2019-9978

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-9978

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
warfareplugins social_warfare < 3.5.3 cpe:2.3:a:warfareplugins:social_warfare:*:*:*:*:*:wordpress:*:*
warfareplugins social_warfare_pro < 3.5.3 cpe:2.3:a:warfareplugins:social_warfare_pro:*:*:*:*:*:wordpress:*:*

References for CVE-2019-9978

URL Tags
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/152722/Wordpress-Social-Warfare-Remote-Code-Execution.html Exploit Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/163680/WordPress-Social-Warfare-3.5.2-Remote-Code-Execution.html Exploit Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://blog.sucuri.net/2019/03/zero-day-stored-xss-in-social-warfare.html Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://twitter.com/warfareplugins/status/1108852747099652099 Third Party Advisory
https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-warfare/#developers Product
https://wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/9238 Broken Link Third Party Advisory
https://www.cybersecurity-help.cz/vdb/SB2019032105 Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/46794/ Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/2019/03/21/full-disclosure-of-settings-change-persistent-cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability-in-social-warfare/ Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2019/03/unpatched-zero-day-vulnerability-in-social-warfare-plugin-exploited-in-the-wild/ Third Party Advisory
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jun/1 Mailing List
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2019-9978 US Government Resource
cvelogic Threat Intelligence