Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This WordPress plugin issue is a permissions failure. A logged-in user may be able to perform plugin actions they should not be allowed to perform. The sources rate it medium severity, with limited integrity and availability impact and no stated confidentiality impact.
Executive priority
Handle this during the next WordPress maintenance cycle, sooner for sites with public user registration or many low-privileged accounts. It is not documented as actively exploited, but access-control flaws can undermine site integrity when account hygiene is weak.
Technical view
CVE-2022-45851 is a CWE-862 Missing Authorization vulnerability in ShareThis Dashboard for Google Analytics for WordPress, reported as affecting versions through 3.1.4. The CVSS 3.1 vector is AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L, meaning network-accessible, low complexity, authenticated access required, and limited impact.
Likely exposure
Exposure is limited to WordPress sites with the ShareThis Dashboard for Google Analytics plugin installed at an affected version. The CVSS vector indicates an attacker needs a valid low-privileged account, so public registration, compromised accounts, or broad contributor access would raise concern.
Exploitation context
The provided sources do not show CISA KEV listing or other evidence of active exploitation. The record does not provide exploit details. Treat this as a validated medium-risk access-control flaw requiring inventory and vendor-guided remediation.
Researcher notes
There is a source inconsistency: the CVE description says affected through 3.1.4, while the Patchstack reference title mentions 3.1.2. No endpoint, patch version, or procedural mitigation is included in the supplied bundle, so validation should avoid assumptions and rely on current vendor advisory details.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory WordPress sites for the ShareThis Dashboard for Google Analytics plugin.
- Flag installed versions reported as through 3.1.4 for remediation review.
- Check ShareThis, WordPress plugin, or Patchstack guidance for a fixed version or vendor action.
- Disable or remove the plugin where no supported fixed version is available.
- Limit WordPress accounts to necessary roles and remove unused low-privileged users.
- Monitor affected sites for unauthorized plugin configuration changes.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether the plugin package googleanalytics is installed on each WordPress site.
- Record the exact installed plugin version and compare it with the affected range.
- Review WordPress user roles, especially sites allowing public or broad account creation.
- Check vendor and Patchstack advisories for corrected affected-version and fix information.
- Review site logs for unexpected plugin administration or configuration activity.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-862: Authorization and privilege behavior lookup
Authorization weaknesses can support privilege escalation and valid-account review, depending on exploit path. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2022-45851 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 5.4 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L2.82.5Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
5.4MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
Source materials
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Missing Authorization
Missing Authorization represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.