# CVE-2014-9034: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause denial of service via CPU exhaustion by submitting long passwords to WordPress login forms.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 25 Nov 2014
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2014-9034, GHSA-wh45-5f5h-v3mq

## What is CVE-2014-9034?

CVE-2014-9034 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Wordpress Wordpress, published on 25 Nov 2014. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

wp-includes/class-phpass.php in WordPress before 3.7.5, 3.8.x before 3.8.5, 3.9.x before 3.9.3, and 4.x before 4.0.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a long password that is improperly handled during hashing, a similar issue to CVE-2014-9016.

Weakness: CWE-19

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2014-9034?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Wordpress Wordpress.

## How do I fix CVE-2014-9034?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2014-9034 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2014-9034 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Public exploit code:

- WordPress Core 4.0 - Denial of Service (exploitdb)
- WordPress Core < 4.0.1 - Denial of Service (exploitdb)

## Other vulnerabilities in Wordpress Wordpress

- [CVE-2026-63030](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-63030/): WordPress Core Interpretation Conflict (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-87902](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-87902/): WordPress Core Remote File Inclusion (high 8.1, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-60137](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-60137/): WordPress Core SQL Injection (medium 5.9, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2012-2399](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-2399/): Cross-site scripting in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2012-2400](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-2400/): Other in n/a (critical 10.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2014-9034 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2014-9034 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Wordpress Wordpress, published on 25 Nov 2014. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2014-9034 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Wordpress Wordpress. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-9034/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-9034/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2014-9034
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-9034
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2014-9034

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-9034/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.