{"id":"CVE-2021-29504","state":"PUBLISHED","title":"Improper Certificate Validation in WP-CLI framework","description":"WP-CLI is the command-line interface for WordPress. An improper error handling in HTTPS requests management in WP-CLI version 0.12.0 and later allows remote attackers able to intercept the communication to remotely disable the certificate verification on WP-CLI side, gaining full control over the communication content, including the ability to impersonate update servers and push malicious updates towards WordPress instances controlled by the vulnerable WP-CLI agent, or push malicious updates toward WP-CLI itself. The vulnerability stems from the fact that the default behavior of `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()` when encountering a TLS handshake error is to disable certificate validation and retry the same request. The default behavior has been changed with version 2.5.0 of WP-CLI and the `wp-cli/wp-cli` framework (via https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523) so that the `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()` method accepts an `$insecure` option that is `false` by default and consequently that a TLS handshake failure is a hard error by default. This new default is a breaking change and ripples through to all consumers of `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()`, including those in separate WP-CLI bundled or third-party packages. https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523 has also added an `--insecure` flag to the `cli update` command to counter this breaking change. There is no direct workaround for the default insecure behavior of `wp-cli/wp-cli` versions before 2.5.0. The workaround for dealing with the breaking change in the commands directly affected by the new secure default behavior is to add the `--insecure` flag to manually opt-in to the previous insecure behavior.","publishedAt":"2021-06-07T20:50:17.000Z","updatedAt":"2024-08-03T22:11:05.507Z","severity":{"score":9.1,"label":"Critical","version":"3.1","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N","source":"GitHub_M"},"assigner":"GitHub_M","products":["wp-cli wp-cli"],"affected":[{"vendor":"wp-cli","product":"wp-cli","versions":[{"version":"< 2.5.0","status":"affected"}]}],"references":["https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/security/advisories/GHSA-rwgm-f83r-v3qj","https://github.com/wp-cli/checksum-command/pull/86","https://github.com/wp-cli/config-command/pull/128","https://github.com/wp-cli/core-command/pull/186","https://github.com/wp-cli/extension-command/pull/287","https://github.com/wp-cli/package-command/pull/138","https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523"],"weaknesses":["CWE-295"],"ingestedAt":"2026-10-29T19:48:21.578Z","source":{"repository":"CVEProject/cvelistV5","path":"cves/2021/29xxx/CVE-2021-29504.json","commit":"556c9d3a8cd17e218bb8e452ba7cd619a384ff47"},"raw":{"dataType":"CVE_RECORD","dataVersion":"5.1","cveMetadata":{"cveId":"CVE-2021-29504","state":"PUBLISHED","datePublished":"2021-06-07T20:50:17.000Z","dateUpdated":"2024-08-03T22:11:05.507Z","assignerShortName":"GitHub_M","assignerOrgId":"a0819718-46f1-4df5-94e2-005712e83aaa","dateReserved":"2021-03-30T00:00:00.000Z"},"containers":{"cna":{"title":"Improper Certificate Validation in WP-CLI framework","descriptions":[{"lang":"en","value":"WP-CLI is the command-line interface for WordPress. 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The default behavior has been changed with version 2.5.0 of WP-CLI and the `wp-cli/wp-cli` framework (via https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523) so that the `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()` method accepts an `$insecure` option that is `false` by default and consequently that a TLS handshake failure is a hard error by default. This new default is a breaking change and ripples through to all consumers of `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()`, including those in separate WP-CLI bundled or third-party packages. https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523 has also added an `--insecure` flag to the `cli update` command to counter this breaking change. There is no direct workaround for the default insecure behavior of `wp-cli/wp-cli` versions before 2.5.0. 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The default behavior has been changed with version 2.5.0 of WP-CLI and the `wp-cli/wp-cli` framework (via https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523) so that the `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()` method accepts an `$insecure` option that is `false` by default and consequently that a TLS handshake failure is a hard error by default. This new default is a breaking change and ripples through to all consumers of `WP_CLI\\Utils\\http_request()`, including those in separate WP-CLI bundled or third-party packages. https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523 has also added an `--insecure` flag to the `cli update` command to counter this breaking change. There is no direct workaround for the default insecure behavior of `wp-cli/wp-cli` versions before 2.5.0. 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