CVE-2019-9787 — WordPress before 5

WordPress before 5.1.1 does not properly filter comment content, leading to Remote Code Execution by unauthenticated users in a default configuration. This occurs because CSRF protection is mishandled, and because Search Engine Optimization of A elements is performed incorrectly,

01What is this vulnerability?

WordPress before 5.1.1 does not properly filter comment content, leading to Remote Code Execution by unauthenticated users in a default configuration. This occurs because CSRF protection is mishandled, and because Search Engine Optimization of A elements is performed incorrectly, leading to XSS. The XSS results in administrative access, which allows arbitrary changes to .php files. This is…

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / n/a	n/a

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2019-03-14T16:00:00.000Z
• Last modified: 2024-08-04T22:01:54.717Z

09References

• blog.ripstech.com — https://blog.ripstech.com/2019/wordpress-csrf-to-rce/
• wordpress.org — https://wordpress.org/news/2019/03/wordpress-5-1-1-security-and-maintenance-rele…
• github.com — https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/0292de60ec78c5a44956765189403654fe…
• wpvulndb.com — https://wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/9230
• www.securityfocus.com — http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/107411
• wordpress.org — https://wordpress.org/support/wordpress-version/version-5-1-1/
• lists.debian.org — https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00044.html
• www.debian.org — https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677