--- title: "All in One SEO vulnerabilities: exploits and patches since 2020" description: "The 2021 privilege escalation, SQL injections, flaws in the AI features: the verified All in One SEO vulnerability timeline and how to protect your site." language: "en" locale: "en-US" type: "article" canonical: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/all-in-one-seo-security-vulnerabilities/" published: "2026-10-08T07:00:00+00:00" modified: "2026-10-29T07:36:30+00:00" translations: en-US: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/all-in-one-seo-security-vulnerabilities/index.md" fr-FR: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/fr/failles-securite-all-in-one-seo/index.md" es-ES: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/es/vulnerabilidades-all-in-one-seo/index.md" de-DE: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/de/all-in-one-seo-sicherheitsluecken/index.md" it-IT: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/it/vulnerabilita-sicurezza-all-in-one-seo/index.md" pt-BR: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/pt/vulnerabilidades-seguranca-all-in-one-seo/index.md" nl-NL: "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/nl/all-in-one-seo-kwetsbaarheden-beveiliging/index.md" --- # All in One SEO vulnerabilities: exploits and patches since 2020 21 vulnerabilities according to WPScan since 2020, including the critical December 2021 privilege escalation and two unauthenticated flaws in October 2026: the verified All in One SEO timeline and the settings that limit the risk. All in One SEO runs on more than 2 million sites and, in December 2021, went through one of the most severe vulnerabilities in the history of SEO plugins: a mere subscriber could take over the site. Since then, advisories have multiplied, especially around the new artificial intelligence features. Here is the verified timeline from 2020 to early October 2026, what each vulnerability allowed and the settings that limit the risk. ## All in One SEO in brief All in One SEO (AIOSEO, formerly All in One SEO Pack) is one of the oldest WordPress plugins: created by Michael Torbert, it has been published on wordpress.org since March 2007. Awesome Motive, the company behind WPForms, OptinMonster and MonsterInsights led by Syed Balkhi, acquired it in February 2020. The free version shows more than 2 million active installations (wordpress.org); a paid Pro version adds modules (local SEO, redirections, news sitemaps). Like all SEO plugins, AIOSEO touches everything: the metadata of every piece of content, [structured data](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/structured-data/), breadcrumbs, sitemaps, the `robots.txt` and `.htaccess` files, and now AI assistants connected to external services. It exposes many REST API routes for its interface. These very routes, and the check of who is allowed to call them, come up in most of the vulnerabilities. ## Timeline of vulnerabilities since 2020 From January 1, 2020 to October 5, 2026, the WPScan database lists 21 vulnerabilities in All in One SEO. We cross-checked them against Wordfence, Patchstack, the [CVE](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/cve/) records, the Jetpack advisory and the AIOSEO changelog. The table keeps the severe vulnerabilities, those exploitable without an account or by a subscriber, and those that received a public analysis; the others are summarized right after. ![Timeline of All in One SEO vulnerabilities: XSS in the SEO fields on July 16, 2020 (3.6.2), code execution via import on May 9, 2021 (4.1.0.2), critical privilege escalation and SQL injection on December 14, 2021 (4.1.5.3), CSRF on September 5, 2022 (4.2.4), XSS on February 24, 2023 (4.3.0), two XSS on April 29, 2024 (4.6.1.1), data and access on September 22, 2025 (4.8.7.2), data exposed on November 26, 2025 (4.8.7), SQL injection on December 6, 2025 (4.9.1.1), AI token exposed on January 15, 2026 (4.9.3), AI block XSS on September 1, 2026 (5.0.0.1), XSS via a booby-trapped link on October 1, 2026 (5.0.2), unauthenticated shortcode execution on October 2, 2026 (5.0.2.1)](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/media/2026/10/chronologie-failles-all-in-one-seo-en.webp) *Fourteen notable events; the only critical vulnerability dates from December 2021.* | Published | Fixed in | Type | CVSS | CVE | Account required | Exploitation | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | July 16, 2020 | 3.6.2 | Stored XSS in the SEO title and description | 5.4 (Wordfence) | CVE-2020-35946 | Contributor | Not documented | | May 9, 2021 | 4.1.0.2 | Code execution via settings file import | 6.6 (WPScan) | CVE-2021-24307 | Administrator | Not documented | | December 14, 2021 | 4.1.5.3 (affected: 4.0.0 to 4.1.5.2) | Privilege escalation via the REST API | 9.9 (Jetpack, WPScan) | CVE-2021-25036 | Subscriber | Not documented | | December 14, 2021 | 4.1.5.3 (affected: 4.1.3.1 to 4.1.5.2) | SQL injection | 7.7 (Jetpack, WPScan) | CVE-2021-25037 | Subscriber, through the previous vulnerability | Not documented | | February 24, 2023 | 4.3.0 | Stored XSS (several parameters) | 6.4 (Wordfence) | CVE-2023-0586 | Contributor | Not documented | | September 22, 2025 | 4.8.7.2 | Broken access control | 5.4 (Patchstack) | CVE-2025-58650 | Low-level account | Not documented | | November 26, 2025 | 4.8.7 | Sensitive data exposure | 6.5 (Patchstack) | CVE-2025-64295 | Subscriber | Not documented | | December 6, 2025 | 4.9.1.1 | Blind SQL injection | 8.5 (Patchstack); 6.8 (WPScan) | CVE-2025-67950 | Contributor | Not documented | | January 15, 2026 | 4.9.3 | Disclosure of the site's AI access token | 4.3 (Wordfence) | CVE-2025-14384 | Contributor | Not documented | | October 1, 2026 | 5.0.2 | Reflected DOM-based XSS via the page URL | 6.1 (Wordfence); 7.1 (WPScan) | CVE-2026-85492 | None (victim click) | Not documented | | October 2, 2026 | 5.0.2.1 | Arbitrary shortcode execution via search | 6.5 (Wordfence, WPScan) | CVE-2026-100152 and CVE-2026-19856 | None | Not documented | *Notable All in One SEO vulnerabilities published from January 1, 2020 to October 5, 2026. "Not documented": no attack described in the sources consulted.* The ten other vulnerabilities of the period are of medium or low severity and require an account. In 2022, several cross-site request forgeries ([CSRF](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/csrf/)) up to 4.2.3.1, fixed in 4.2.4. In 2023, an administrator-only XSS (4.4). In 2024, two stored XSS by contributors, via shortcodes and post fields, fixed in 4.6.1.1. In 2025, an XSS in the meta description and canonical URL (fixed in 4.8.2), data exposure by a contributor (4.8.7.2) and deletion of any media item by a contributor via the AI image generator route (4.9.0). In 2026, API tokens and license values visible in the editor's source code (4.9.7.1), incorrect authorization on the AI integration (4.9.9) and a stored XSS in the "ai-assistant" block (5.0.0.1). For the October 2026 search vulnerability, Wordfence and WPScan each published a CVE record: it is a single flaw, counted once. ## The notable vulnerabilities explained ### July 2020: the first public alert after the acquisition On July 10, 2020, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team discovered that the "SEO title" and "SEO description" fields accepted code from a contributor without sanitizing it. The script ran when an administrator opened the post list, and therefore with their rights. AIOSEO released version 3.6.2 on July 15, five days after the discovery. Our article on XSS vulnerabilities in WordPress details this scenario. *The July 2020 XSS vulnerability presented by Wordfence, which discovered it (in English).* ### May 2021: from a settings file to code execution The Import/Export tool let you restore settings from an `.ini` file. Before version 4.1.0.2, the plugin unserialized the values of this file; with the Monolog library it bundled, a booby-trapped file was enough to run commands on the server. It did, however, require an account with rights over the AIOSEO tools, in practice an administrator. This is the PHP object injection we explain in [our dedicated article](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/php-deserialization-object-injection/). Vincent Michel reported it. ### December 2021: a subscriber in control of the site This is the plugin's landmark vulnerability. During an internal audit, Marc Montpas of the Jetpack Scan team discovered that the function deciding which permission checks to apply to a REST route compared the route path case-sensitively. But WordPress handles these routes case-insensitively: changing a single letter to uppercase was enough to skip every check. A subscriber, the lowest role, could then call every route of the plugin, including the one that rewrites the `.htaccess` file, which paves the way for a backdoor and code execution. CVSS score: 9.9 out of 10. Versions 4.0.0 to 4.1.5.2 were affected. The second vulnerability (CVSS 7.7, versions 4.1.3.1 to 4.1.5.2) was in the `/wp-json/aioseo/v1/objects` route: the search only escaped input with `esc_like()`, which does not neutralize quotes. An SQL injection made it possible to extract data such as usernames and password hashes. This route was not supposed to be open to subscribers, but the privilege escalation made it reachable: the two vulnerabilities combined. The response was fast: first contact on December 1, 2021, details sent on the 2nd, version 4.1.5.3 released on the 8th, Jetpack's public advisory on the 14th. No attack is documented in the sources consulted. The risk mainly concerned sites that let visitors create an account: stores, forums, membership sites. [REST API routes](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/wordpress-rest-api-security/) and role management are covered in dedicated articles. ### Late 2025: access controls and a new SQL injection Between September and December 2025, five advisories followed one another, four of them found by researchers in Patchstack's bug bounty program. The most serious is a blind SQL injection open to a contributor, reported on November 6, 2025 by the researcher mcdruid, fixed in 4.9.1.1 and published on December 6. Patchstack rates it 8.5 but considers it unlikely to be exploited; WPScan rates it 6.8. Another notable point: an information exposure open to a mere subscriber (6.5), fixed in 4.8.7. ### AI features, a new attack surface Since late 2025, four vulnerabilities have targeted AIOSEO's artificial intelligence features. The image generator route only checked that the user could write posts, not that they owned the media item: a contributor could delete any image on the site (fixed in 4.9.0). The `/aioseo/v1/ai/credits` route handed a contributor the site's global AI access token (4.9.3). Then came incorrect authorization on the AI integration (4.9.9) and a stored XSS in the "ai-assistant" block, triggered when a more privileged user edits the post (5.0.0.1). Every new feature adds routes, and every route must check permissions. ### October 2026: two vulnerabilities exploitable without an account On October 1, 2026, Wordfence published a DOM-based XSS in the admin bar SEO preview: a booby-trapped link, opened by a user allowed to manage SEO who then opened the preview panel, ran a script in their session. It was fixed in 5.0.2 on September 22. The next day, a broader flaw was made public: by passing shortcodes in the `s` search parameter, a visitor without an account could have any shortcode registered on the site executed. According to Wordfence, AIOSEO breadcrumbs had to be displayed on the results page; according to WPScan, the protection was even disabled on sites updated from old versions. The impact depends on the shortcodes installed by other plugins. Version 5.0.2.1 of October 1 strengthens this filtering. ![Bar chart of All in One SEO vulnerabilities per year according to WPScan: 1 in 2020, 3 in 2021 including one critical and one high, 1 in 2022, 2 in 2023, 2 in 2024, 6 in 2025 and 6 in 2026 up to October 5 including one high](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/media/2026/10/failles-par-annee-all-in-one-seo-en.webp) *21 vulnerabilities according to WPScan from January 1, 2020 to October 5, 2026: twelve since 2025.* ## What this history shows - **Access control is the recurring weak spot.** From the critical 2021 vulnerability to the 2026 AI routes, most severe flaws come from a REST route that does a poor job of checking who is calling it. - **The pace is accelerating.** One to three vulnerabilities a year from 2020 to 2024, six in 2025 and six from January to early October 2026. New features (AI, SEO preview) and the growing interest of bug bounty programs contribute to this. - **Fixes arrive quickly.** Five days in 2020, six days in December 2021 after the details were sent, and the fix generally precedes the public advisory. - **The subscriber account is not harmless.** At least two vulnerabilities, including the critical one of 2021, are open to a mere subscriber: if your visitors can register, every vulnerability of this kind concerns you directly. - **Compared with its competitors**, AIOSEO has a heavier history than Yoast SEO, whose free version has only had medium-severity vulnerabilities since 2020 (see our [Yoast SEO vulnerability timeline](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/yoast-seo-security-vulnerabilities/)); Rank Math has its [own article](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/rank-math-security-vulnerabilities/). To put these figures in the context of the whole ecosystem, see [plugin vulnerabilities by the numbers](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/wordpress-plugin-vulnerabilities-statistics/) and, for WordPress core, the [timeline of security releases](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/wordpress-core-vulnerabilities-timeline/). ## Protecting your site - **Upgrade to at least 5.0.2.1**, which fixes every vulnerability listed here. If you use AIOSEO Pro, also update the Pro add-on from your account. - **Turn on automatic updates** for AIOSEO: fixes often come out before the public advisory. Our guide to automatic plugin updates explains how to go about it. - **Close registration if you do not need it** (Settings, General, "Anyone can register" checkbox) and check that the default role remains "Subscriber". - **Only enable AI features if you use them**, and keep writing accounts to the strict minimum. - **A single SEO plugin**: delete the ones you no longer use (abandoned plugins). - **Add a web application firewall** with virtual patching to cover the delay before your update (WAF comparison) and monitor your plugins' vulnerabilities. WP Masquerade Pro can warn you. Every day, it compares your plugin versions with the public WPVulnerability.net database and sends you an [email alert](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/features/vulnerable-plugin-alerts/) with the severity and the fixed version ([alert settings](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/features/email-alerts/)). The member area lists pending updates and vulnerable sites ([site monitoring](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/features/#surveillance)). It alerts, it does not fix: WP Masquerade does not install updates and it is not a firewall. To choose your tools, see our selection of the [best security plugins](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/best-wordpress-security-plugins/). ### Key takeaways - 21 vulnerabilities according to WPScan from January 1, 2020 to October 5, 2026, one of them critical: the December 2021 privilege escalation (4.0.0 to 4.1.5.2), fixed in 4.1.5.3. - Most severe vulnerabilities are broken access controls on the REST API, often open to a contributor or a subscriber. - AI features have brought four vulnerabilities since late 2025. - In early October 2026, two vulnerabilities exploitable without an account: update to 5.0.2.1 at least. - No attack is documented in the sources consulted. ## Sources - WordPress.org: All in One SEO, description and active installations (https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/) - CVE.org: CVE-2021-24307, All in One SEO Pack Admin RCE via unserialize (May 24, 2021) (https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-24307) - CVE.org: CVE-2021-25036, All In One SEO Authenticated Privilege Escalation (January 17, 2022) (https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-25036) - AIOSEO: changelog (versions 4.9.9 to 5.0.2.1) (https://aioseo.com/changelog/) Other sources consulted: further CVE records, security research publications, trade press articles, Wordfence, WPScan and Patchstack databases. ## WordPress security, without the noise One e-mail when something matters: new attacks seen in the wild, plugin updates and practical guides. 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