# SchedulePress <= 5.3.4 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Missing Authorization to Post Publishing and Scheduling via Post Panel and Calendar REST Endpoints

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-1248
- **Plugin:** SchedulePress – Auto Post & Publish, Auto Social Share, Schedule Posts with Editorial Calendar & Missed Schedule Post Publisher (`wp-scheduled-posts`), https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-scheduled-posts/
- **Affected versions:** all versions before 5.3.5
- **Fixed in:** 5.3.5 (Update to 5.3.5 or later.)
- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)
- **Weakness:** CWE-862
- **Usage among sites WPSec scans:** plugin Low, affected versions None seen (as of 2026-10-19)
- **Attack surface analysis:** https://attacksurface.wpsec.com/plugin/wp-scheduled-posts
- **Fix released:** 2026-10-18
- **Published:** 2026-10-19
- **URL:** https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1248/

## Description

The SchedulePress – Auto Post & Publish, Auto Social Share, Schedule Posts with Editorial Calendar & Missed Schedule Post Publisher plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized post publishing via the post panel REST routes (post-panel save and update-settings publish/unpublish) and the calendar post edit REST route in all versions up to, and including, 5.3.4, due to these routes checking only the edit_post capability and never publish_post. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Contributor-level access and above to schedule or publish their own posts without publishing rights, bypassing editorial review.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1248/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/wp-scheduled-posts/tags/5.3.5/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-scheduled-posts/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1248/

License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Free to use, share and adapt, also commercially, if you credit WPSec and link to this advisory.