CVE-2024-13643 | Zox News <= 3.17.0 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Options Modification

The Zox News - Professional WordPress News & Magazine Theme plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized data modification. This vulnerability can lead to privilege escalation and denial of service conditions due to missing capability checks on the backup_options() and reset_options() functions in all versions up to and including 3.17.0. This vulnerability allows authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access and above to update and delete arbitrary option values on the WordPress site. Attackers can exploit this issue to update the default user role for registration to Administrator and enable user registration, thereby gaining administrative access to the vulnerable site. Additionally, they could delete critical options, causing errors that may disrupt the site's functionality and deny service to legitimate users.

Published: 2025-02-11 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2024-13643 is rated Moderate Risk (45.8/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.12%). Mandatory action: 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-2024-13643

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 2026-03-22 0.21% 0.12% -0.09%
2 2025-10-28 0.28% 0.21% -0.07%
3 2025-10-17 0.28%

Full EPSS history (13 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-13643

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
2.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-13643

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-13643

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2024-13643

cvelogic Threat Intelligence