What is CVE-2019-20043?

CVE-2019-20043 is a medium-severity vulnerability in WordPress, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2019-12-27.

How severe is CVE-2019-20043?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.

Is CVE-2019-20043 known to be exploited?

8 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Privilege escalation in WordPress

CVE-2019-20043

In in wp-includes/rest-api/endpoints/class-wp-rest-posts-controller.php in WordPress 3.7 to 5.3.0, authenticated users who do not have the rights to publish a post are able to mark posts as sticky or unsticky via the REST API. For example, the contributor role does not have such rights, but this allowed them to bypass that. This has been patched in WordPress 5.3.1, along with all the previous WordPress versions from 3.7 to 5.3 via a minor release.

Vulnerability class: Privilege Escalation

Published 2019-12-27 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.025 (83.9th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 84th percentile — 83.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.025 · newest: 0.025 · change: 0.000

Affected products

WordPress
Debian Linux — versions 9.0, 10.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-269 — Improper Privilege Management

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/9973 (Third Party Advisory, Release Notes)
wordpress.org/news/2019/12/wordpress-5-3-1-security-and-maintenance-release/ (Release Notes, Vendor Advisory)
core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/46893/trunk (Patch)
github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/commit/1d1d5be7aa94608c04516cac4238e8c22… (Third Party Advisory)
seclists.org/bugtraq/2020/Jan/8 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4599 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/security/advisories/GHSA-g7rg-hchx-c2gw (Third Party Advisory)
www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2019-20043?: CVE-2019-20043 is a medium-severity vulnerability in WordPress, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2019-12-27.
How severe is CVE-2019-20043?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.
Is CVE-2019-20043 known to be exploited?: 8 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.