What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-16220

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.1 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 2.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2019-09-11 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-601

Description

In WordPress before 5.2.3, validation and sanitization of a URL in wp_validate_redirect in wp-includes/pluggable.php could lead to an open redirect if a provided URL path does not start with a forward slash.

Affected products

• Debian Linux: 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
• WordPress: before 5.2.3 — fixed in 5.2.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: WordPress 5.2.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/45971
• https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/c86ee39ff4c1a79b93c967eb88522f5c09614a28
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/10/msg00023.html
• https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2020/Jan/8
• https://wordpress.org/news/2019/09/wordpress-5-2-3-security-and-maintenance-release/
• https://wpvulndb.com/vulnerabilities/9863
• https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4599
• https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677
• https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/45971
• https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/commit/c86ee39ff4c1a79b93c967eb88522f5c09614a28
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/10/msg00023.html
• https://medium.com/@theodorejackson.us/rediscovering-an-old-vulnerability-cve-2019-16220-d25cc441752f

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