WordPress wordpress core

WordPress Core < 3.9.2 — Denial of Service via XML

CVE-2014-5265Published Aug 6, 2014 · Updated Nov 13, 2026

Affected: ≤3.9.1Update to 3.7.4 or 3.8.4 or 3.9.2 or newer

Fixed versions are per release branch: update to the fix for the branch you run.

All remediation steps

Watch core

Severity

Low2.7

CVSS

2.7

CVSS 3.1 · CNA (Wordfence)

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

What does this vector mean?

AV:N Attack vector: Network
AC:L Attack complexity: Low
PR:H Privileges required: High
UI:N User interaction: None
S:U Scope: Unchanged
C:N Confidentiality: None
I:N Integrity: None
A:L Availability: Low

Weakness

CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Required access

Unknown

Exploit prediction (EPSS)

No score

CISA KEV

Not listed

On this page7

Am I affected?

WordPress wordpress

Affected≤ 3.9.1
Patched in3.7.4 / 3.8.4 / 3.9.2

You are affected if you run ≤ 3.9.1. Version 3.7.4, 3.8.4, 3.9.2 and later are not affected by this issue.

Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under WordPress.
No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.

What to do

Update to one of the following versions, or a newer patched version: 3.7.4, 3.8.4, 3.9.2
Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
Watch WordPress to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Ivan Novikov.

The Incutio XML-RPC (IXR) Library, as used in WordPress before 3.9.2 and Drupal 6.x before 6.33 and 7.x before 7.31, permits entity declarations without considering recursion during entity expansion, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory and CPU consumption) via a crafted XML document containing a large number of nested entity references, a similar issue to CVE-2003-1564.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

Advisorywordfence.com

Timeline

Aug 6, 2014
CVE published
Severity low, CVSS 2.7
Nov 13, 2026
Record last updated

Sources & licenses

Wordfence record

Vulnerability data: Wordfence Intelligence. Copyright 2012-2026 Defiant Inc. Licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0.
CVE® identifiers: Copyright 1999-2026 The MITRE Corporation. Used under the CVE Program. CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.
CVSS / CWE: National Vulnerability Database (NVD), shown unmodified. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

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