Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessObtain or compromise WordPress admin credentials
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DeliveryAuthenticate to WordPress dashboard
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ExploitNavigate to plugin admin page with orderby GET parameter
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ExecutionInject time-delay SQL payload (e.g., SLEEP(5)) to confirm blind injection
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PersistExecute conditional subqueries to enumerate database schema
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ImpactExtract wp_users credential hashes
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization Parameterized queries, prepared statements
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Initial Access, Persistence The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires an authenticated session with WordPress administrator-level privileges (PR:H per CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N). Additionally, the attacker must have access to the specific plugin admin pages that render the vulnerable views (readMorePagesView.php or accordionBuilder/list.php), which pass the orderby GET parameter to the affected functions. Sites that have configured the yrm-user-roles plugin setting to grant plugin admin page access to roles below administrator (e.g., editor or contributor) effectively lower the privilege requirement beyond what the CVSS PR:H rating reflects. Exploitation is not possible by unauthenticated users or standard subscriber/customer roles on default plugin configurations. The vulnerability is network-reachable (AV:N) and requires no user interaction beyond the attacker's own authenticated session. |
| Impact | The CVSS 4.9 medium score is primarily driven by the PR:H (high privilege) component of the vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N, which requires the attacker to already hold administrator-level access in WordPress. This significantly constrains real-world risk: a WordPress administrator already has nearly full site control via the dashboard, so the marginal gain from this vulnerability is primarily access to raw database credential hashes rather than an initial foothold. That said, the C:H rating is meaningful if the attacker's goal is lateral movement - extracting hashed credentials of other administrator accounts or harvesting data from custom database tables. The attack complexity is low (AC:L) and requires no user interaction (UI:N), so execution is straightforward once access conditions are met. No EPSS score was provided in the source data; given the PR:H constraint and absence of KEV or POC indicators, this vulnerability is lower priority than unauthenticated or low-privilege SQLi. However, sites that have configured the yrm-user-roles setting to grant plugin admin access to lower-privileged roles effectively lower the privilege bar below administrator, which could meaningfully raise practical risk beyond what the CVSS vector captures. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker who has obtained WordPress administrator credentials - whether through phishing, credential stuffing, or password reuse - authenticates to the WordPress dashboard and navigates to a plugin admin page that invokes getAllDataByLimit() with the GET parameter orderby. The attacker submits a crafted value such as (SELECT SLEEP(5)) and observes a five-second response delay confirming blind injection, then iterates conditional subqueries to extract the wp_users table, recovering administrator password hashes for offline cracking. No public POC code has been identified at time of analysis, but the technique is a well-documented blind SQLi pattern requiring no specialized tooling beyond standard tools like sqlmap. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – May 20, 2026
Time-based blind SQL injection in the Read More & Accordion WordPress plugin (slug: expand-maker) through version 3.5.7 enables authenticated administrators to exfiltrate arbitrary database contents, including administrator password hashes, by manipulating the orderby GET parameter. The flaw exists in two data-retrieval functions in ReadMoreData.php, where user input bypasses effective sanitization and is concatenated unquoted into an ORDER BY SQL clause. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, and this CVE is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog, though the high-confidentiality CVSS impact (C:H) reflects genuine data-exposure potential.
RemediationAI
No vendor-released patch has been identified at time of analysis - the available references point only to the vulnerable 3.5.7 tagged release and trunk code, with no fix commit or updated release confirmed. Site owners should monitor the WordPress plugin repository for an updated release and apply it immediately upon availability. As a compensating control, administrators should audit the yrm-user-roles plugin setting and restrict it to the minimum required roles, reducing the number of accounts that can reach the vulnerable admin pages; note that this does not eliminate risk for sites with multiple administrator accounts. Additionally, a web application firewall (WAF) rule blocking ORDER BY injection patterns (e.g., SQL keywords or time-delay functions in the orderby parameter) can reduce exposure, though WAF rules can be bypassed and should not substitute for a code-level fix. If the plugin is not actively required, temporarily deactivating it eliminates the attack surface entirely with no functional trade-off for non-users.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The affected plugin (CPE: cpe:2.3:a:edmonparker:read_more_&_accordion:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) registers admin-facing pages that pass the raw $_GET['orderby'] value through esc_attr() - an HTML-encoding function designed for attribute output, not SQL safety - before handing it to getAllDataByLimit() and getAccordionAllDataByLimit() in ReadMoreData.php (lines 1522 and 1537 of the 3.5.7 tag). Inside those functions, esc_sql() is applied, but because the value is concatenated directly and unquoted into the ORDER BY fragment before $wpdb->prepare() is invoked, the escaping is entirely ineffective: esc_sql() only strips quotes and backslashes, which are irrelevant in a bare ORDER BY context. This is the canonical CWE-89 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in SQL Commands) pattern where a developer confuses an HTML-escaping helper with a SQL-safe quoting mechanism. The structural fix is to whitelist acceptable column names rather than attempt escaping on a free-form ORDER BY token.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Primary rating from Vendor (Wordfence) · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorVendor: Wordfence
DescriptionCVE.org
The Read More & Accordion plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to time-based blind SQL Injection via the 'orderby' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 3.5.7. This is due to the use of esc_sql() without surrounding the value in quotes in an ORDER BY clause inside the getAllDataByLimit() and getAccordionAllDataByLimit() functions in ReadMoreData.php. The user-supplied $_GET['orderby'] value is only processed through esc_attr() (an HTML-escaping function) before being passed to these database functions, where esc_sql() is applied but the value is directly concatenated-unquoted-into the ORDER BY fragment of the SQL query before $wpdb->prepare() is called. Because esc_sql() only escapes quote characters and backslashes (which are irrelevant in an unquoted ORDER BY context), an attacker can inject arbitrary SQL expressions such as (SELECT SLEEP(5)) or conditional subqueries to perform time-based blind data extraction. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with administrator-level access or above (or any role explicitly permitted access to the plugin's admin pages via the yrm-user-roles setting) to extract sensitive data from the database, including administrator credential hashes.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
SQL injection exploits the way applications construct database queries by mixing user input directly into SQL statements.
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
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