CVE-2021-29450

WordPress Core < 5.7.1 - Sensitive Information Disclosure

2021-04-15 00:00

Strategic Overview

Status: Patched in 4.7.20
Affected Core: WordPress 5.7
Affected Version: 4.7 – < 5.7.1 · 11 branches
CVSS: 6.5Medium
Weakness type: CWE-200 · Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
CVE: CVE-2021-29450

At a glance

CVE-2021-29450 is a medium-severity Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor vulnerability in the WordPress 5.7 WordPress release line, affecting 4.7 – < 5.7.1 · 11 branches. It carries a CVSS score of 6.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality impact). The issue is fixed in version 4.7.20; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed April 2021, reported by Mikael Korpela.

Vulnerability Overview

Wordpress is an open source CMS. One of the blocks in the WordPress editor can be exploited in a way that exposes password-protected posts and pages. This requires at least contributor privileges. This has been patched in WordPress 5.7.1, along with the older affected versions via minor releases. It's strongly recommended that you keep auto-updates enabled to receive the fix.

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. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality.

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

Reaching this weakness in WordPress 5.7 4.7 – < 5.7.1 · 11 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 5.7 the fix is 4.7.20: builds 4.7 – < 5.7.1 · 11 branches are affected, anything from 4.7.20 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to one of the following versions, or a newer patched version: 4.7.20, 4.8.16, 4.9.17, 5.0.12, 5.1.9, 5.2.10, 5.3.7, 5.4.5, 5.5.4, 5.6.3, 5.7.1

How does WordSec protect against this?

The fix is the thing that ends this: updating to 4.7.20 is the step that ends it.

Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-29450 https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/a57426d2-0ca4-405b-bfbf-0685e2c744a0 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-29450

Related records

Same weakness class

Other vulnerabilities in WordPress 5.7

CVSS Vector

6.5

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

Base

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

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