CVE-2018-20151

WordPress Core < 5.0.1 - Sensitive Information Disclosure

2018-12-12 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 3.7.28
Affected Core: WordPress 5.0
Affected Version: 3.7 – 5.0 · 15 branches
CVSS: 7.5High
Weakness type: CWE-200 · Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
CVE: CVE-2018-20151

At a glance

CVE-2018-20151 is a high-severity Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor vulnerability in the WordPress 5.0 WordPress release line, affecting 3.7 – 5.0 · 15 branches. It carries a CVSS score of 7.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 3.7.28; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed December 2018, reported by Team Yoast.

Vulnerability Overview

In WordPress before 4.9.9 and 5.x before 5.0.1, the user-activation page could be read by a search engine's web crawler if an unusual configuration were chosen. The search engine could then index and display a user's e-mail address and (rarely) the password that was generated by default.

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 privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality.

CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Reaching this weakness in WordPress 5.0 3.7 – 5.0 · 15 branches takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Sensitive information exposure means data the application intended to keep internal is returned to a caller who should not be able to see it.

The disclosed data — credentials, tokens, customer records or internal paths — is usually worth more as material for a follow-up attack than as an end in itself. For WordPress 5.0 the fix is 3.7.28: builds 3.7 – 5.0 · 15 branches are affected, anything from 3.7.28 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to one of the following versions, or a newer patched version: 3.7.28, 3.8.28, 3.9.26, 4.0.25, 4.1.25, 4.2.22, 4.3.18, 4.4.17, 4.5.16, 4.6.13, 4.7.12, 4.8.8, 4.9.9, 5.0.1

How does WordSec protect against this?

The fix is the thing that ends this: updating to 3.7.28 is the step that ends it.

Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-20151 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/caa66246-7ffa-4944-ae3a-9c872300b7d4 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-20151

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WordPress 5.0

CVSS Vector

7.5

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

Base

Attack VectorNetwork
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredNone
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityNone
AvailabilityNone

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