Missing authorization in Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Security bypass
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- Low · None · None
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-862.
Summary
The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object References in all versions up to, and including, 26.5. This is due to insufficient authorization checks in the Meta Search REST API endpoint that fail to verify post ownership. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to read sensitive SEO metadata from any post on the site via the 'post_id' parameter, including posts owned by other users, private posts, and draft posts.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-14481
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-5h48-r6mr-r747
References
Other 5
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/04b2123d-ae0c-4984-95f5-7040f8604c92?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wordpress-seo/trunk/src/routes/meta-search-route.php#L56
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wordpress-seo/tags/26.4/src/routes/meta-search-route.php#L56
- https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo/pull/22797
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3412286/wordpress-seo#file163
More Yoast vulnerabilities
- TI-2017-14158 Google Analytics Dashboard Plugin cross site scriting CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.1
- TI-2019-15368 Duplicate-Post 3.2.3 - Persistent Cross-Site Scripting CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 4.8
- TI-2019-10120 The Yoast SEO plugin before 11.6-RC5 for WordPress does not properly restrict unfiltered HTML in term descriptions. CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2023-13290 WordPress Yoast SEO: Local Plugin <= 14.8 is vulnerable to Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
- TI-2015-02025 Multiple SQL injection vulnerabilities in admin/class-bulk-editor-list-table.php in the… CVSS 2.0MEDIUM 6.5
- TI-2018-13725 A Race condition vulnerability in unzip_file in admin/import/class-import-settings.php in… CVSS 3.0MEDIUM 6.6
Sources
- CVE-2025-14481 · CVE Program
- CVE-2025-14481 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-5h48-r6mr-r747 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences