CVE-2026-109592: OpenStation missing authorization check vulnerability
medium 4.3 published 2026-10-30
- Affected versions
- 1.1.16 and older
- Fixed in
- 1.1.17 *
- Latest version
- 1.1.18
- Severity
- Medium · CVSS 4.3
- Active installs
- 1,000+
- Type
- Missing authorization check
* The source does not name a fixed version; this is the first wordpress.org release after the last affected version.
What an attacker needs
- Access: A logged-in account with Subscriber-level access or higher.
CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
What to do now
- Update OpenStation to 1.1.17 or newer (the latest is 1.1.18): Dashboard → Updates, or Plugins → “update now”.
- If you cannot update right away, deactivate it until you can.
- Turn on auto-updates for it: Plugins → “Enable auto-updates” on its row.
- Not sure which version you run? Check your version against every known OpenStation issue.
With WP-CLI:
wp plugin get desktop-mode --field=version. - If you ran an affected version and something looks off (new admin users, spam pages, redirects), run the free scan below.
The advisory
The OpenStation: Desktop Windows, Dock & Virtual Desktops for WP Admin plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 1.1.16. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to modify arbitrary other users' placement rows (position, sort order, parent folder, and meta) and read serialized metadata — including title, permalink, and post status — of the entities those orphaned placements reference. Exploitation requires at least one orphaned placement to exist — a state produced naturally by the plugin's own trash cascade, which marks a parent folder as trashed while leaving child placements' parent_id intact — and the attacker must first self-enable OpenStation via the save-openstation AJAX endpoint, which requires only the 'read' capability held by every default WordPress role. This was also independently found by the OpenStation team.
References
- NVD CVE-2026-109592 nvd.nist.gov
- Wordfence advisory www.wordfence.com
- Code change (fix) plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- Plugin source plugins.trac.wordpress.org
Related
Ran an affected version? Check your site for signs of a hack
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Where this data comes from
- CVE record, score and references: NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), checked 2026-11-04. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Versions and install counts: wordpress.org/plugins/desktop-mode (Plugins API), fetched 2026-11-04.
- The summary, “what an attacker needs” and “what to do” sections are our plain-English reading of the record and the plugin's release history; the quoted description is the record's own text. Spot an error? Email Daniel.