WordPressCMS

CVE-2019-17670

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-10-17
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 5.2.4 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
WordPress before 5.2.4 has a Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability because Windows paths are mishandled during certain validation of relative URLs.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-918

The server can be induced to make requests to a URL an attacker controls, turning it into a proxy into internal networks and cloud metadata services. It's especially dangerous behind a trusted network boundary. The fix is strict allow-listing of destinations and blocking access to internal address ranges.

General guidance for the server-side request forgery (ssrf) class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
WordPressCMS
Affected:< 5.2.4
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 8.0= 9.0= 10.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 5.2.4 or later
Fixed in 5.2.4
Recommended fix High confidence

WordPress 5.2.4 or later (latest stable release recommended)

  1. 1. Create a full backup of your WordPress installation including the database
  2. 2. For self-hosted WordPress: navigate to Dashboard > Updates and click 'Update Now' to upgrade to WordPress 5.2.4 or later
  3. 3. Alternatively, download the latest WordPress release from wordpress.org and upload via FTP/SFTP, replacing existing files while preserving wp-config.php and wp-content/
  4. 4. For Debian systems: run 'apt update && apt upgrade wordpress' to install the patched Debian package
  5. 5. After updating, verify the WordPress version shows 5.2.4 or higher under Dashboard > About WordPress
  6. 6. Test that common functionality (posting, media upload, plugins) works correctly
Caveat WordPress minor version upgrades are typically safe; however, always test backups and staging environments before production deployment as some plugins/themes may have compatibility issues with newer versions

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-17670 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-17670 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data