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CVE-2016-8869

88
FAUCET Score

CVE-2016-8869 is a critical privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Joomla! versions prior to 3.6.4. It allows remote attackers to gain elevated privileges during user registration due to improper handling of unfiltered data within the Users component. With a CVSS score of 9.8 (CRITICAL) and an EPSS score indicating high exploitability, this vulnerability poses a significant risk, allowing for complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Exploitation has been observed in the wild, with publicly available Metasploit modules and ExploitDB entries demonstrating its ease of use. The high number of community discussions and media coverage further confirm its active exploitation and widespread impact.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 3.6.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:joomla:joomla\!:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

9.8CRITICAL

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
97.43%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
99.9%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-25
Model: v2026.06.15
Metasploit: Joomla Account Creation and Privilege Escalation · Oct 25, 2016
ExploitDB: EDB-40637 · Oct 27, 2016
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.9743 is in the 99th percentile among its peer group of 36,833 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (1)

github_advisorypatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch

References

blog.sucuri.net / 2016/10/details-on-the-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-joomla.html
ExploitTechnical DescriptionThird Party Advisory
developer.joomla.org / security-centre/660-20161002-core-elevated-privileges.html
Vendor Advisory
github.com / joomla/joomla-cms/commit/bae1d43938c878480cfd73671e4945211538fdcf
Patch
medium.com / %40showthread/joomla-3-6-4-account-creation-elevated-privileges-write-up-and-exploit-965d8fb46fa2
exploit-db.com / exploits/40637
ExploitThird Party Advisory
rapid7.com / db/modules/auxiliary/admin/http/joomla_registration_privesc
Third Party Advisory
securityfocus.com / bid/93883
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
securitytracker.com / id/1037108
Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry