Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 8.0

CVE-2022-21661 in the critical feed json

SQL injection in WordPress

published 2022-01-06 4 y ago modified 2026-09-08 2 mo ago also BIT-wordpress-2022-21661 , BIT-wordpress-multisite-2022-21661 , EUVD-2022-26878 , GHSA-6676-cqfm-gw84

cvss
8.0
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
97.8%
EPSS 97.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99.9%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB, plus a Nuclei check

Summary

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MariaDB database. Due to improper sanitization in WP_Query, there can be cases where SQL injection is possible through plugins or themes that use it in a certain way. This has been patched in WordPress version 5.8.3. Older affected versions are also fixed via security release, that go back till 3.7.37. We strongly recommend that you keep auto-updates enabled. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Patch / fix

  • bitnami wordpress 3.7.37, 3.8.37, 3.9.35, 4.0.34, 4.1.34, 4.2.31, 4.3.27, 4.4.26, 4.5.25, 4.6.22, 4.7.22, 4.8.18, 4.9.19, 5.0.15, 5.1.12, 5.2.14, 5.3.11, 5.4.9, 5.5.8, 5.6.7, 5.7.5, 5.8.3
  • bitnami wordpress-multisite 3.7.37, 3.8.37, 3.9.35, 4.0.34, 4.1.34, 4.2.31, 4.3.27, 4.4.26, 4.5.25, 4.6.22, 4.7.22, 4.8.18, 4.9.19, 5.0.15, 5.1.12, 5.2.14, 5.3.11, 5.4.9, 5.5.8, 5.6.7, 5.7.5, 5.8.3
  • wordpress wordpress 3.7.37, 3.8.37, 3.9.35, 4.0.34, 4.1.34, 4.2.31, 4.3.27, 4.4.26, 4.5.25, 4.6.22, 4.7.22, 4.8.18, 4.9.19, 5.0.15, 5.1.12, 5.2.14, 5.3.11, 5.4.9, 5.5.8, 5.6.7
  • wordpress Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.8.3+dfsg1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-21661

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-2022-21661 updated cvss 8.0

wordpress: SQL injection via WP_Query

  • 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

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. First public exploit (EDB-50663)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

97.80% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-50663 WordPress Core 5.8.2 - 'WP_Query' SQL Injection webapps, 2022-01-13
  • Nuclei template WordPress <5.8.3 - SQL Injection nuclei detection template
  • packetstormsecurity.com http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/165540/WordPress-Core-5.8.2-SQL-Injection.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • vicarius.io https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/understanding-the-wordpress-sql-injection-vulnerability-cve-2022-21661 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
OSV 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
bitnami wordpress
>=3.7.0, <3.7.37
>=3.8.0, <3.8.37
>=3.9.0, <3.9.35
>=4.0.0, <4.0.34
>=4.1.0, <4.1.34
>=4.2.0, <4.2.31
>=4.3.0, <4.3.27
>=4.4.0, <4.4.26
>=4.5.0, <4.5.25
>=4.6.0, <4.6.22
>=4.7.0, <4.7.22
>=4.8.0, <4.8.18
>=4.9.0, <4.9.19
>=5.0.0, <5.0.15
>=5.1.0, <5.1.12
>=5.2.0, <5.2.14
>=5.3.0, <5.3.11
>=5.4.0, <5.4.9
>=5.5.0, <5.5.8
>=5.6.0, <5.6.7
>=5.7.0, <5.7.5
>=5.8.0, <5.8.3
3.7.37
3.8.37
3.9.35
4.0.34
4.1.34
4.2.31
4.3.27
4.4.26
4.5.25
4.6.22
4.7.22
4.8.18
4.9.19
5.0.15
5.1.12
5.2.14
5.3.11
5.4.9
5.5.8
5.6.7
5.7.5
5.8.3
bitnami wordpress-multisite
>=3.7.0, <3.7.37
>=3.8.0, <3.8.37
>=3.9.0, <3.9.35
>=4.0.0, <4.0.34
>=4.1.0, <4.1.34
>=4.2.0, <4.2.31
>=4.3.0, <4.3.27
>=4.4.0, <4.4.26
>=4.5.0, <4.5.25
>=4.6.0, <4.6.22
>=4.7.0, <4.7.22
>=4.8.0, <4.8.18
>=4.9.0, <4.9.19
>=5.0.0, <5.0.15
>=5.1.0, <5.1.12
>=5.2.0, <5.2.14
>=5.3.0, <5.3.11
>=5.4.0, <5.4.9
>=5.5.0, <5.5.8
>=5.6.0, <5.6.7
>=5.7.0, <5.7.5
>=5.8.0, <5.8.3
3.7.37
3.8.37
3.9.35
4.0.34
4.1.34
4.2.31
4.3.27
4.4.26
4.5.25
4.6.22
4.7.22
4.8.18
4.9.19
5.0.15
5.1.12
5.2.14
5.3.11
5.4.9
5.5.8
5.6.7
5.7.5
5.8.3

Affected products

  • WordPress wordpress-develop

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-89 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command
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.

The maintainers of WordPress/wordpress-develop published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.