CriticalCVE-2020-25213

    WordPress File Manager Plugin Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2020-25213)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org

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    What is affected, what to do

    The File Manager (wp-file-manager) plugin before 6.9 for WordPress allows remote attackers to upload and execute arbitrary PHP code because it renames an unsafe example elFinder connector file to have the .php extension. This, for example, allows attackers to run the elFinder upload (or mkfile and put) command to write PHP code into the wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/lib/files/ directory.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. Update WordPress File Manager Plugin to version 6.9. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • WordPress File Manager Plugin lt *..6.9
    Fixed in
    • WordPress File Manager Plugin 6.9

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    10.0

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    10.0

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org

    97.3 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.90

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    229.84 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    actively exploited
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    10.0 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    10.0
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    97.3 %
    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    99.90
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 4 February 2025
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-434

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This flaw delivers unauthenticated remote code execution over the network with no user interaction, placing it at the top of the severity scale, and EPSS ranks exploitation likelihood among the highest observed anywhere. Mass scanning for the vulnerable endpoint has been continuous since September 2020, with public PoCs and a Metasploit module available — any exposed, unpatched installation is typically compromised within hours of being discovered. CISA does not flag ransomware use, but in practice the bug is a staple initial-access vector for cryptominers, SEO-spam injection, and webshell deployment used to pivot further into internal networks. Operational verdict: treat every internet-facing WordPress instance running this plugin as priority 1 regardless of business criticality — compromised CMS hosts routinely become jump boxes into the internal estate.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Update the wp-file-manager plugin to version 6.9 or later immediately (vendor patch available). If the update cannot be deployed right away, deactivate the plugin via wp plugin deactivate wp-file-manager or rename the wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/ directory.
      • Inspect wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/lib/files/ for unknown PHP files and preserve a forensic copy before deletion — common webshell names: hardfork.php, hardfind.php, x.php, connector.minimal.php.
      • Check whether lib/php/connector.minimal.php (or the renamed .dist sample) is reachable; if so, block web access to lib/files/ and lib/php/ via .htaccess or an Nginx location { deny all; } block.
      • Rotate all WordPress admin and database credentials, check wp_users for newly created administrator accounts, and review wp_options.active_plugins for unexpected entries.
      • Temporarily filter outbound traffic from affected hosts to common C2 destinations (pastebin, raw.githubusercontent.com, known malicious IPs) and switch the WAF to block mode for /wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/*.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • WAF/reverse proxy: block requests whose path contains */wp-file-manager/lib/php/connector.minimal.php as well as POST bodies carrying cmd=upload, cmd=mkfile, cmd=put (ModSecurity: SecRule REQUEST_URI "connector\.minimal\.php" chain followed by a body inspection rule).
      • Network segmentation: isolate WordPress hosts in a dedicated DMZ VLAN with egress whitelisting (only update servers and SMTP relay). Prevents second-stage payload retrieval from compromised instances.
      • Filesystem hardening: strip PHP execution from wp-content/uploads/ and wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/lib/files/ via web-server config (php_admin_flag engine off on Apache, location ~ \.php$ { deny all; } on Nginx for these paths).
      • IAM/least-privilege: restrict the WordPress DB user to minimal rights (no FILE, no SUPER); run PHP-FPM pools under a per-site system user; set open_basedir to WP root; enforce disable_functions = exec,system,passthru,shell_exec,proc_open,popen.
      • File-integrity monitoring (Wazuh, Tripwire, OSSEC) on wp-content/plugins/ and wp-content/mu-plugins/ with alerts on new .php files.
      • Keep a live plugin inventory via wp-cli or the WPScan API to flag end-of-life and outdated plugins before they become the next KEV entry.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web server access logs (Apache/Nginx/Zeek http.log): POST requests to */wp-file-manager/lib/php/connector.minimal.php returning HTTP 200 — almost certainly malicious once patched. Sigma shape: selection: cs-uri-stem|contains: 'connector.minimal.php' AND cs-method: 'POST'.
      • POST bodies or query strings containing cmd=upload, cmd=mkfile, cmd=put combined with target= and filenames ending in .php, .phtml, .phar. Suricata: alert http any any -> $WEB_SERVERS any (content:"connector.minimal.php"; http_uri; content:"cmd=mkfile"; http_client_body; sid:1000001;).
      • EDR/Sysmon EID 1 (process create): php-fpm or httpd/apache2/nginx spawning sh, bash, python, perl, wget, curl, nc — the classic webshell execution chain. KQL: DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName in ('php-fpm','httpd','apache2') and FileName in ('sh','bash','curl','wget','nc','python').
      • Linux auditd (-w /var/www -p wa): new .php files under wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/lib/files/ or wp-content/uploads/. Alert on syscall=creat or openat with O_CREAT and a .php suffix.
      • Outbound connections from web server processes to IRC ports (6660-6669), pastebin domains, or dynamic DNS providers (duckdns.org, no-ip) via Zeek conn.log plus dns.log.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    The File Manager (wp-file-manager) plugin before 6.9 for WordPress allows remote attackers to upload and execute arbitrary PHP code because it renames an unsafe example elFinder connector file to have the .php extension. This, for example, allows attackers to run the elFinder upload (or mkfile and put) command to write PHP code into the wp-content/plugins/wp-file-manager/lib/files/ directory. This was exploited in the wild in August and September 2020.

    Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    filemanagerprofile_manager
    • < 6.9
    • 6.9

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-434Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type

      Base

      The product allows the upload or transfer of dangerous file types that are automatically processed within its environment.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-434

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    Reference tagged as exploitgithub.com (opens in a new tab)PoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    Packet StormWordPress File Manager 6.8 Remote Code Execution (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    Packet StormWordPress File Manager 6.9 Shell Upload (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    PoC-in-GitHub (nomi-sec)CVE-2020-25213-exploit (opens in a new tab)github.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified

    References & sources

    • wordpress.orgplugins/wp-file-managerProduct, Release notes
    • github.comw4fz5uck5/wp-file-manager-0dayExploit, Third-party advisory
    • hotforsecurity.bitdefender.comblog/wordpress-websites-attacked-via-file-manager-plugin-vulner…Broken link, Third-party advisory
    • wordfence.comblog/2020/09/700000-wordpress-users-affected-by-zero-day-vulner…Exploit, Third-party advisory
    • plugins.trac.wordpress.orgchangeset/2373068Patch
    • zdnet.comarticle/millions-of-wordpress-sites-are-being-probed-attacked-w…Press coverage
    • seravo.comblog/0-day-vulnerability-in-wp-file-managerExploit, Third-party advisory
    • packetstormsecurity.comfiles/160003/WordPress-File-Manager-6.8-Remote-Code-Execution.h…Exploit, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • packetstormsecurity.comfiles/171650/WordPress-File-Manager-6.9-Shell-Upload.htmlExploit, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-25213government-resource, US government resource
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