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PatchSiren cyber security CVE debrief

CVE-2016-4042 Plone CVE debrief

CVE-2016-4042 describes an information disclosure weakness in Plone that could let a remote attacker obtain the ID of sensitive content. The public record says the issue affects Plone 3.3 through 5.1a1 and was assigned a medium CVSS 3.0 score of 5.3. The source corpus does not describe the exact attack path, so defenders should treat this as a confidentiality issue with unclear triggering conditions and verify exposure against the vendor guidance.

Vendor
Plone
Product
Unknown
CVSS
MEDIUM 5.3
CISA KEV
Not listed in stored evidence
Original CVE published
2017-02-24
Original CVE updated
2026-05-13
Advisory published
2017-02-24
Advisory updated
2026-05-13

Who should care

Plone administrators, site operators, and anyone running affected Plone releases 3.3 through 5.1a1 should review this advisory. It is most relevant to teams exposing Plone content to untrusted users or the public web, especially where content identifiers could reveal sensitive structure or metadata.

Technical summary

The NVD record classifies the weakness as CWE-200 and rates it CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N, indicating a network-reachable issue with no privileges or user interaction required and a confidentiality impact only. The vulnerability description states that remote attackers may obtain information about the ID of sensitive content through unspecified vectors. Because the source corpus does not specify the exact mechanism, the safest assumption is that some form of content metadata or identifier leakage is possible in affected releases.

Defensive priority

Moderate. This is not a code-execution or integrity-impacting issue in the supplied record, but it can still expose sensitive information that may aid reconnaissance or content mapping. Prioritize if your Plone deployment publishes sensitive or access-controlled content.

Recommended defensive actions

  • Confirm whether any Plone installation is in the affected range: 3.3 through 5.1a1.
  • Review the vendor advisory and associated hotfix guidance before making changes.
  • Apply the vendor-recommended hotfix or upgrade path for affected deployments.
  • Check whether sensitive content IDs are exposed to unauthenticated users or in public responses.
  • Limit exposure of administrative, internal, or access-controlled content where possible.
  • After remediation, verify that content identifiers and related metadata are no longer disclosed to unauthorized users.

Evidence notes

This debrief is based only on the supplied CVE/NVD record and the linked vendor or advisory references. The record explicitly identifies Plone versions 3.3 through 5.1a1 as affected, classifies the weakness as CWE-200, and provides a CVSS vector showing network access with no privileges or user interaction required. The source corpus does not include a detailed exploit scenario or specific vulnerable endpoint, so no additional attack details are asserted here.

Sources and references

Verified primary and authoritative sources

  • CVE-2016-4042 CVE Program record

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-4042

    CVE Program - Official CVE Program record with source-provided CVE metadata.

  • CVE-2016-4042 NVD vulnerability detail

    Publisher, destination, and source semantics verified

    URL: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-4042

    NIST National Vulnerability Database - Official NIST NVD detail page and source-specific vulnerability assessment.

Supplemental references

Methodology and review provenance

AI-assisted synthesis based on stored public vulnerability evidence. System validation, approval state, and publication status do not by themselves establish human review of this revision. PatchSiren helps prioritize defensive review and does not prove exposure or remediation on any system.