CVE-2007-0539

WordPress Core < 2.1 - Denial of Service

2007-01-22 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 2.1
Affected Core: WordPress 2.1
Affected Version: < 2.1
CVSS: 4.3Medium
Weakness type: CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVE: CVE-2007-0539

At a glance

CVE-2007-0539 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the WordPress 2.1 WordPress release line, affecting < 2.1. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). The issue is fixed in version 2.1; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2007, reported by Blake Matheny.

Vulnerability Overview

The wp_remote_fopen function in WordPress before 2.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (bandwidth or thread consumption) via pingback service calls with a source URI that corresponds to a large file, which triggers a long download session without a timeout constraint.

Technical Analysis

The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no interaction from a victim user.

CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Reaching this weakness in WordPress 2.1 < 2.1 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Uncontrolled resource consumption means a request can make the server do an amount of work it never bounds, because the size or repetition of the job is taken from the request rather than capped by the code.

A single caller can hold PHP workers, database connections or disk open long enough to slow the site for everyone, without needing any account or any other flaw. For WordPress 2.1 the fix is 2.1: builds < 2.1 are affected, anything from 2.1 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.1, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to WordPress 2.1: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: updating to 2.1 is the step that ends it.

Firewall
Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2007-0539 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/94332eb8-0961-4c8d-97bb-3d5d08e8119f https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2007-0539

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WordPress 2.1

CVSS Vector

4.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredLow
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityNone
AvailabilityLow

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