Pods <= 3.3.9 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Authorization Bypass to Admin Methods via 'pods_admin' AJAX Router
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- 4 proofs of concept on GitHub, 1 Nuclei template
- Exploitation: none
- Automatable: yes
- Technical impact: total
Summary
The Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Authorization Bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.3.9. The vulnerability exists because the pods_admin AJAX router funnels every access check — including the method allowlist, nonce verification, login enforcement, and capability gate — through pods_error(), which under the JSON meta-box-loader compatibility path only writes failures to the PHP error log and returns false instead of terminating the request, rendering all guards ineffective. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to escalate their privileges to Administrator or overwrite the password of any user account, including the site owner's, enabling complete site takeover, or perform another administrator action.
Timeline
- CVE published
- CISA SSVC assessment
Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: total
- Record last updated
Affected versions
- sc0ttkclark Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields
From 2.8 · through 2.8.23.3; From 2.9 · through 2.9.19.3; From 3.0 · through 3.0.10.3; From 3.1 · through 3.1.4.1; From 3.2 · through 3.2.8.2; From 3.3 · through 3.3.9