CVE-2021-29504

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_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. 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.

• CVE ID
• CVE-2021-29504

• Assigner
• security-advisories@github.com

• Vulnerability Status
• Analyzed

• Published Version
• 2021-06-07T21:15:08

• Last Modified Date
• 2021-06-17T15:33:50

• Version
• 2.0

• Vector String
• AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

• Access Vector
• NETWORK

• Access Compatibility
• LOW

• Authentication
• NONE

• Confidentiality Impact
• PARTIAL

• Integrity Impact
• PARTIAL

• Availability Impact
• PARTIAL

• Base Score
• 7.5

• Severity
• HIGH

• Exploitability Score
• 10

• Impact Score
• 6.4

• Version
• 3.1

• Vector String
• CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

• Attack Vector
• NETWORK

• Attack Compatibility
• HIGH

• Privileges Required
• NONE

• User Interaction
• NONE

• Scope
• UNCHANGED

• Confidentiality Impact
• HIGH

• Availability Impact
• NONE

• Base Score
• 7.4

• Base Severity
• HIGH

• Exploitability Score
• 2.2

• Impact Score
• 5.2