Page and Post Restriction <= 1.6.1 — Unauthenticated Authentication Bypass via REST API Nonce Bypass via Cookie Re-Authentication

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Page and Post Restriction.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.
• No account is needed to exploit this. Treat any exposed site on an affected version as at risk.

What to do

1. Update to version 1.6.2, or a newer patched version
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch Page and Post Restriction to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Wordfence PRISM.

The Page and Post Restriction plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass in all versions up to, and including, 1.6.1 This is due to the `papr_restrict_page_post_rest_api()` function, hooked on `rest_pre_dispatch`, re-authenticating the current user from the `wordpress_logged_in` cookie via `wp_set_current_user()` for any GET or HEAD REST request where the current user is 0, without verifying a REST nonce — silently undoing the nonce-zeroing that WordPress core's `rest_cookie_check_errors()` performs on cookie-authenticated requests that lack an `X-WP-Nonce` header or `_wpnonce` parameter. Combined with WordPress's permissive REST CORS behavior — which echoes the request `Origin` and sets `Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true` — this allows an unauthenticated attacker to read REST API GET responses as a logged-in victim, exposing role-restricted and private post/page content, victim user profile data via `/wp-json/wp/v2/users/me`, and comments the victim is authorized to see. This requires the attacker to lure a logged-in user into visiting an attacker-controlled page that issues credentialed cross-origin `fetch` requests against the target site's REST API; no nonce or further victim interaction beyond the page visit is needed.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

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

Advisories & patches

• Advisorywordfence.com

Related CVEs

Timeline

1. Oct 29, 2026

   CVE published

   Severity medium, CVSS 6.5

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated