CVE-2023-4402· NVD / CVE Program· CNA Wordfence

Essential Blocks <= 4.2.0 - Unauthenticated PHP Object Injection via products

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 39/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 1.4% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 73% of all records.
Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
According to the record, no fixed version is available yet.

Low priority for now. Update when a fix is released; follow the vendor's advisory.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

The Essential Blocks plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to PHP Object Injection in versions up to, and including, 4.2.0 via deserialization of untrusted input in the get_products function. This allows unauthenticated attackers to inject a PHP Object. No POP chain is present in the vulnerable plugin. If a POP chain is present via an additional plugin or theme installed on the target system, it could allow the attacker to delete arbitrary files, retrieve sensitive data, or execute code.

CriticalCVSS 9.8 · v3.1—No exploit No fix recorded

Published: Oct 20, 2023
Updated: Jun 17, 2026
EPSS: 1.5% · 73th percentile
CWE: CWE-502

Report tools

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Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 39 / 40 · 9.8 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 1.5%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD: 9.8
CNA · Wordfence: 8.1; 1.7 point gap

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

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Is Gutenberg Essential Blocks – Page Builder for Gutenberg Blocks & Patterns on your site?

WP Lens reads your site's plugin, theme and WordPress versions from the outside and matches them to known vulnerabilities. Works without an account.

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

Is your version affected? Check it

Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

Vendor	Product	CPE
wpdeveloper	essential blocks	cpe:2.3:a:wpdeveloper:essential_blocks
wpdeveloper	essential blocks pro	cpe:2.3:a:wpdeveloper:essential_blocks_pro

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

wpdeveloper essential blocksbefore 4.2.1
wpdeveloper essential blocks probefore 1.1.1

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (Wordfence). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

wpdevteam Essential Blocks Pro
- up to and including 1.1.0affected · semver
wpdevteam Gutenberg Essential Blocks – Page Builder for Gutenberg Blocks & Patterns
- up to and including 4.2.0affected · semver

Same product

wpdeveloper: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2023-6623Essential Blocks < 4.4.3 - Unauthenticated Local File Inclusion
54Plan
CVE-2025-26871WordPress Essential Blocks plugin <= 4.8.3 - Broken Access Control vulnerability
35Monitor
CVE-2023-51360WordPress Essential Blocks plugin <= 4.2.0 - Multiple Subscriber+ Broken Access Control vulnerability
35Monitor
CVE-2023-51359WordPress Essential Blocks plugin <= 4.2.0 - Multiple Contributor+ Broken Access Control vulnerability
35Monitor
CVE-2023-47760WordPress Essential Blocks plugin <= 4.2.0 - Broken Access Control vulnerability
35Monitor
CVE-2024-30467WordPress Essential Blocks plugin <= 4.4.9 - Broken Access Control vulnerability
35Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

Marco Wotschkafinder

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

CVE-2023-43860 days apartEssential Blocks <= 4.2.0 - Unauthenticated PHP Object Injection via queries
32Monitor

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
No account or password is required.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: high · data can be read
Integrity: high · data or configuration can be modified
Availability: high · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: High
Integrity impact: High
Availability impact: High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-502 · Deserialization of Untrusted Data

CVSS vector

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

nvd-primary

Root cause

Data received over the network is deserialized into the language’s native object format without verifying its source. Code paths inside the object can be triggered during deserialization.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-502 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

python

1payload = sock.recv(65536)2job = pickle.loads(payload)

Fixed

python

1payload = sock.recv(65536)2if not hmac.compare_digest(sign(payload), header_sig):3    raise PermissionError("invalid signature")4job = JobSchema.validate(json.loads(payload))

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

Object InjectionCAPEC-586likelihood: Medium · High

ATT&CK techniques

—

Change log

No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.

References

www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/1ede7a25-9bb2-408e-b7fb-e5bd4f594351?source=cve

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records