CVE-2026-109979: Related Posts for WordPress information disclosure vulnerability
medium 4.3 published 2026-10-28 · updated 2026-10-29
- Affected versions
- 3.0.0 and older
- Fixed in
- 3.0.1 *
- Latest version
- 3.0.1
- Severity
- Medium · CVSS 4.3
- Active installs
- 10,000+
- Type
- Information disclosure
* 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 Contributor-level access or higher.
CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
What to do now
- Update Related Posts for WordPress to 3.0.1 or newer: 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 Related Posts for WordPress issue.
With WP-CLI:
wp plugin get related-posts-for-wp --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 Related Posts for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Sensitive Information Exposure in versions up to, and including, 3.0.0 via the 'rp4wp_create_link' parameter of the hidden 'rp4wp_link_related' admin page. The handle_create_link() handler verifies the nonce and that the current user can edit the parent post, but never checks that the attacker-supplied child post ID is one the user is allowed to read; LinkRepository::insert() stores the arbitrary child ID without validation, and ManageLinks::render() later calls LinkRepository::get_children() in its no-extra-args fast path, which falls through to array_map('get_post', $child_ids) — bypassing read_private_posts/read_post capability checks — and then echoes esc_html($child->post_title) in the parent's editor meta box. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to read the titles of arbitrary non-public posts (drafts, pending, private, future, trashed) authored by higher-privileged users by linking those post IDs to a draft they own and then reading the resulting meta box.
References
- NVD CVE-2026-109979 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/related-posts-for-wp (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.