CVE-2021-29504 | Date: (C)2021-06-09 (M)2023-12-22 |
WP-CLI is the command-line interface for WordPress. 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_CLIUtilshttp_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_CLIUtilshttp_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_CLIUtilshttp_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. 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.
CVSS Score and Metrics +CVSS Score and Metrics -CVSS V3 Severity: | CVSS V2 Severity: |
CVSS Score : 7.4 | CVSS Score : 7.5 |
Exploit Score: 2.2 | Exploit Score: 10.0 |
Impact Score: 5.2 | Impact Score: 6.4 |
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CVSS V3 Metrics: | CVSS V2 Metrics: |
Attack Vector: NETWORK | Access Vector: NETWORK |
Attack Complexity: HIGH | Access Complexity: LOW |
Privileges Required: NONE | Authentication: NONE |
User Interaction: NONE | Confidentiality: PARTIAL |
Scope: UNCHANGED | Integrity: PARTIAL |
Confidentiality: HIGH | Availability: PARTIAL |
Integrity: HIGH | |
Availability: NONE | |
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