WP Popular Posts vulnerability

The WP Popular Posts plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Sensitive Information Exposure in all versions up to, and including, 7.4.2 via the 'context' parameter. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive edit-context fields — including raw title, raw content body, password, meta, status, and guid — from non-public post objects such as wp_block synced patterns that WordPress core itself refuses to expose to unauthenticated callers. This is possible because the plugin's REST route is registered with a permission_callback of __return_true and passes the caller-supplied context parameter (e.g., context=edit) directly to WP_REST_Posts_Controller::prepare_item_for_response() without invoking get_item_permissions_check() or check_read_permission(), while the underlying query accepts an arbitrary post_type value without enforcing public or show_in_rest visibility flags.

Published 1 Oct 2026Updated 3 Oct 20267 sources
CVSS 5.3

What happened

The WP Popular Posts plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Sensitive Information Exposure in all versions up to, and including, 7.4.2 via the 'context' parameter. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive edit-context fields — including raw title, raw content body, password, meta, status, and guid — from non-public post objects such as wp_block synced patterns that WordPress core itself refuses to expose to unauthenticated callers. This is possible because the plugin's REST route is registered with a permission_callback of __return_true and passes the caller-supplied context parameter (e.g., context=edit) directly to WP_REST_Posts_Controller::prepare_item_for_response() without invoking get_item_permissions_check() or check_read_permission(), while the underlying query accepts an arbitrary post_type value without enforcing public or show_in_rest visibility flags.

Affected versions

WP Popular Posts: 0 through 7.4.2 (semver) Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.

Detection & mitigation

  • Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
  • Review affected product exposure and access logs.

Public PoC references

No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.