CVE-2019-20041
9.8
CRITICAL · CVSS 3.1 · EPSS 4.5% (pctl 91)
In your normal cycle
Critical by CVSS (9.8), but no sign of active exploitation.
Description
wp_kses_bad_protocol in wp-includes/kses.php in WordPress before 5.3.1 mishandles the HTML5 colon named entity, allowing attackers to bypass input sanitization, as demonstrated by the javascript: substring.
Scoring
| CVSS | 9.8 (CRITICAL, v3.1) |
|---|---|
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| EPSS | 4.53% — more likely to be exploited than 91% of all CVEs |
| Weakness | CWE-20 |
| On CISA KEV | no |
| Public exploit | none known |
| Published | 2019-12-27 |
| Last modified | 2026-06-17 |
Affected (2)
| Vendor | Product |
|---|---|
| debian | debian linux |
| wordpress | wordpress |
References
- https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/commit/b1975463dd995da19bb40d3fa0786498717e3c53
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/01/msg00010.html
- https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2020/Jan/8
- https://wordpress.org/news/2019/12/wordpress-5-3-1-security-and-maintenance-release/
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4599
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677
- https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/commit/b1975463dd995da19bb40d3fa0786498717e3c53
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/01/msg00010.html
- https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2020/Jan/8
- https://wordpress.org/news/2019/12/wordpress-5-3-1-security-and-maintenance-release/
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4599
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677
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