CVE-2024-9161Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings <= 1.0.228 - Missing Authorization to Unauthenticated User and Term Metadata Insert, Update, and Delete
- 6.5MediumCVSS base score
- 2.1%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 18% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
The Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification and loss of data due to a missing capability check on the 'update_metadata' function in all versions up to, and including, 1.0.228. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to insert new and update existing metadata beginning with 'rank_math', and delete arbitrary existing user metadata and term metadata. Deleting existing usermeta can cause a loss of access to the administrator dashboard for any registered users, including Administrators.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Nuclei template for it.
Show the exploits1
Nuclei templates1 template
- Rank Math SEO < 1.0.229 - Unauthenticated User and Term Metadata Insert/Update/Deletion (Nuclei template) (opens in a new tab)
http/cves/2024/CVE-2024-9161.yamlSeverity medium
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By Wordfence
- 11 days later
· 11 days later
Published
- 18 months later
· 18 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordfenceCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 2.1% · top 18% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.5.
Affected products
rankmath · Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings
- affected ≤ 1.0.228
References
References6
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/7df39a64-76c5-4ebe-a271-44bd147a3a86?source=cve (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/seo-by-rank-math/trunk/includes/rest/class-shared.php#L120 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/seo-by-rank-math/trunk/includes/rest/class-shared.php#L161 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/seo-by-rank-math/trunk/includes/rest/class-shared.php#L162 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/seo-by-rank-math/trunk/includes/rest/class-shared.php#L64 (opens in a new tab)
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3161896/ (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2024-49763 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2024-9161)Record last updated .