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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2020-28037 in the critical feed json

is_blog_installed in wp-includes/functions.php in WordPress before 5.5.2 improperly determines whether WordPress is already installed, whic…

published 2020-10-31 6 y ago modified 2026-09-08 2 mo ago also BIT-wordpress-2020-28037 , BIT-wordpress-multisite-2020-28037 , EUVD-2020-20528

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
8.1%
EPSS 8.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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).

Patch / fix

  • bitnami wordpress 5.5.2
  • bitnami wordpress-multisite 5.5.2
  • wordpress wordpress 5.5.2
  • wordpress Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.5.3+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-28037

  • wordpress Arch Linux 5.5.3-1

arch linux advisories AVG-1257

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-28037 updated cvss 8.1

wordpress: DoS attack could lead to RCE

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

8.07% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
OSV 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
bitnami wordpress
<5.5.2
5.5.2
bitnami wordpress-multisite
<5.5.2
5.5.2

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-754 Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.