Quick answers
- Is CVE-2017-5611 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2017-5611 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2017-5611?
- Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.8, published 30 January 2017.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Wordpress < 4.7.2.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2017-5611?
- A patch was published on 2017-01-26: WordPress 4.7.2 released Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2017-5611 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2017-5611?
- Check whether you run Wordpress at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A SQL injection vulnerability exists in the WP_Query class within wp-includes/class-wp-query.php. The root cause is the improper neutralization of special characters in post type names when constructing SQL queries. While WordPress core does not expose a direct path to exploit this, third-party plugins or themes that pass unvalidated user input into WP_Query parameters (specifically post types) can be leveraged by remote attackers to execute arbitrary SQL commands. The fix, introduced in version 4.7.2, implements hardening by using esc_sql() and $wpdb->prepare() to ensure post type parameters are properly escaped before being included in database queries.
Affected products
- WordPress WordPress < 4.7.2
Timeline
- 2017-01-26: patched: WordPress 4.7.2 released
- 2017-01-30: disclosed: Public disclosure of CVE-2017-5611
References
- http://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3779
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/28/5
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95816
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1037731
- https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.7.2
- https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/85384297a60900004e27e417eac56d24267054cb
- https://wordpress.org/news/2017/01/wordpress-4-7-2-security-release/