CVE-2020-28037

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 8.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-11-02 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-754

Description

is_blog_installed in wp-includes/functions.php in WordPress before 5.5.2 improperly determines whether WordPress is already installed, which might allow an attacker to perform a new installation, leading to remote code execution (as well as a denial of service for the old installation).

Affected products

Debian Linux: 10.0
Fedoraproject Fedora: 31, 32, 33
WordPress: before 5.5.2 — fixed in 5.5.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: WordPress 5.5.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/commit/2ca15d1e5ce70493c5c0c096ca0c76503d6da07c
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/11/msg00004.html
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/CHHVNK2WYAM3ZTCXTFSEIT56IKLVJHU3/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VAVVYJKA2I6CRQUINECDPBGWMQDEG244/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VUXVUAKL2HL4QYJEPHBNVQQWRMFMII2Y/
https://wordpress.org/news/2020/10/wordpress-5-5-2-security-and-maintenance-release/
https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/10450
https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4784
https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/commit/2ca15d1e5ce70493c5c0c096ca0c76503d6da07c
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/11/msg00004.html
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/CHHVNK2WYAM3ZTCXTFSEIT56IKLVJHU3/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VAVVYJKA2I6CRQUINECDPBGWMQDEG244/

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