7.5 High
CVSS2
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Confidentiality Impact
PARTIAL
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
PARTIAL
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
9.1 High
CVSS3
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
NONE
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
0.002 Low
EPSS
Percentile
61.4%
An improper error handling in HTTPS requests management in WP-CLI version 0.12.0 and later allows remote attackers able to intercept the communication to remotely disable the certificate verification on WP-CLI side, gaining full control over the communication content, including the ability to impersonate update servers and push malicious updates towards WordPress instances controlled by the vulnerable WP-CLI agent, or push malicious updates toward WP-CLI itself.
The vulnerability stems from the fact that the default behavior of WP_CLI\Utils\http_request()
when encountering a TLS handshake error is to disable certificate validation and retry the same request.
The default behavior has been changed with version 2.5.0 of WP-CLI and the wp-cli/wp-cli
framework (via https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523) so that the WP_CLI\Utils\http_request()
method accepts an $insecure
option that is false
by default and consequently that a TLS handshake failure is a hard error by default. This new default is a breaking change and ripples through to all consumers of WP_CLI\Utils\http_request()
, including those in separate WP-CLI bundled or third-party packages.
https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523 has also added an --insecure
flag to the cli update
command to counter this breaking change.
Subsequent PRs on the command repositories have added an --insecure
flag to the appropriate commands on the following repositories to counter the breaking change:
There is no direct workaround for the default insecure behavior of wp-cli/wp-cli
versions before 2.5.0.
The workaround for dealing with the breaking change in the commands directly affected by the new secure default behavior is to add the --insecure
flag to manually opt-in to the previous insecure behavior.
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
#cli
channel in the WordPress.org Slack to ask questions or provide feedback.CPE | Name | Operator | Version |
---|---|---|---|
wp-cli/wp-cli | ge | 0.12.0 | |
wp-cli/wp-cli | lt | 2.5.0 |
github.com/advisories/GHSA-rwgm-f83r-v3qj
github.com/FriendsOfPHP/security-advisories/blob/master/wp-cli/wp-cli/CVE-2021-29504.yaml
github.com/wp-cli/checksum-command/pull/86
github.com/wp-cli/config-command/pull/128
github.com/wp-cli/core-command/pull/186
github.com/wp-cli/extension-command/pull/287
github.com/wp-cli/package-command/pull/138
github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523
github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/security/advisories/GHSA-rwgm-f83r-v3qj
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-29504
7.5 High
CVSS2
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Confidentiality Impact
PARTIAL
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
PARTIAL
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
9.1 High
CVSS3
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
NONE
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
0.002 Low
EPSS
Percentile
61.4%