Newspaper Theme 6.4–6.7.1 - Privilege Escalation

criticalseverity

9.8CVSS score

10.8%likelihood of exploitation, next 30 days

96%of all CVEs are less likely

Readycheck to confirm it

Newspaper Theme versions 6.4 to 6.7.1 for WordPress lacked proper options access control through td_ajax_update_panel, which led to a Privilege Escalation vulnerability.

Impact

Unauthenticated attackers can escalate their privileges to administrator level, allowing complete control over the WordPress site including content manipulation, user management, and potential site takeover.

Fix

Update to Newspaper Theme version 6.7.2 or later.

How to confirm it

Send: GET {{BaseURL}}/wp-content/themes/Newspaper/style.css
Positive when: status_code == 200 and compare_versions(version, '>= 6.4', '<= 6.7.1') and contains(body, 'Newspaper')

Run it with nuclei: nuclei -id CVE-2016-10972 -u <target>. This check is not marked as verified by its authors.

The full check

id: CVE-2016-10972

info:
  name: Newspaper Theme 6.4–6.7.1 - Privilege Escalation
  author: pussycat0x
  severity: critical
  description: |
    Newspaper Theme versions 6.4 to 6.7.1 for WordPress lacked proper options access control through td_ajax_update_panel, which led to a Privilege Escalation vulnerability.
  impact: |
    Unauthenticated attackers can escalate their privileges to administrator level, allowing complete control over the WordPress site including content manipulation, user management, and potential site takeover.
  remediation: |
    Update to Newspaper Theme version 6.7.2 or later.
  reference:
    - https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/5365ecca-93e2-4bfc-bd4a-6f61d7d75e96/
  classification:
    cvss-metrics: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
    cvss-score: 9.8
    cve-id: CVE-2016-10972
    cwe-id: CWE-269
    epss-score: 0.10829
    epss-percentile: 0.95887
    cpe: cpe:2.3:a:tagdiv:newspaper:*:*:*:*:*:wordpress:*:*
  metadata:
    fofa-query: 'body="wp-content/themes/mTheme-Unus/"'
    vendor: tagdiv
    product: newspaper
    framework: wordpress
  tags: wpscan,cve,cve2016,wp,wordpress,wpscan,wp-theme,newspaper,passive,vkev,vuln

http:
  - method: GET
    path:
      - "{{BaseURL}}/wp-content/themes/Newspaper/style.css"

    matchers:
      - type: dsl
        dsl:
          - "status_code == 200"
          - "compare_versions(version, '>= 6.4', '<= 6.7.1')"
          - "contains(body, 'Newspaper')"
        condition: and

    extractors:
      - type: regex
        part: body
        group: 1
        name: version
        regex:
          - 'Version: 		([0-9.]+)'
        internal: true

References

https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/5365ecca-93e2-4bfc-bd4a-6f61d7d75e96/

Use this check only on systems you are authorised to test. Where the data comes from