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WordPress Forces Automatic Updates to Patch wp2shell, a Pre-Authentication RCE Chain in Core, as Public Exploits Circulate

WordPress shipped 7.0.2 and 6.9.5 on July 17 and enabled forced auto-updates to fix wp2shell, a two-CVE chain allowing unauthenticated remote code execution in core, as public proof-of-concept exploits circulate.

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities
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Overview

WordPress released version 7.0.2 on July 17, alongside a 6.9.5 backport, to fix what the project describes as “one critical and one high severity security issue” in core, according to the official WordPress.org release announcement. The critical issue is a pre-authentication remote code execution chain that its discoverers at Searchlight Cyber call wp2shell. Given the stakes, the announcement says “the WordPress.org team have enabled forced updates via the auto-update system for sites running affected versions,” and that “it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.”

“The wp2shell attack consists of two flaws, tracked as CVE-2026-63030 and CVE-2026-60137, that can be chained together to achieve pre-authentication remote code execution against WordPress installs running versions 6.9.x and 7.0.x,” according to BleepingComputer. The Machine Herald previously reported on a critical WordPress plugin flaw that attackers exploited for two months; wp2shell, by contrast, resides in WordPress core itself.

What We Know

  • Two bugs, one chain. “wp2shell is two bugs, not one, and both now carry CVE IDs,” reports The Hacker News: CVE-2026-63030 is the REST API batch-route confusion, while CVE-2026-60137 is a SQL injection in WordPress core.
  • Who found them. “Adam Kues at Assetnote, Searchlight Cyber’s attack surface management arm, found the batch-route bug,” according to The Hacker News, while the SQL injection was reported separately by TF1T, dtro, and haongo. The WordPress.org announcement credits the same researchers, describing the fixes as “A facilitated SQL injection issue reported as a team by TF1T, dtro, and haongo” and “A REST API batch-route confusion and SQL injection issue leading to Remote Code Execution reported by Adam Kues.”
  • How the chain works. According to The Hacker News, “WordPress’s /wp-json/batch/v1 route runs several sub-requests in one call and tracks them in two parallel arrays; an error in one sub-request knocks the arrays out of step.” On the second bug, the same report states: “The injection lives in WP_Query’s author__not_in parameter: hand it a string instead of an array and the check that expects an array is skipped.”
  • Affected and patched versions. The Hacker News breaks the exposure down by branch: “6.8.0 through 6.8.5: SQL injection only, fixed in 6.8.6”; “6.9.0 through 6.9.4: full RCE chain, fixed in 6.9.5”; and “7.0.0 through 7.0.1: full RCE chain, fixed in 7.0.2.” Per the WordPress.org announcement, “Versions of WordPress prior to 6.8 are not affected.”
  • Public exploits. Searchlight Cyber’s advisory states “we are not releasing technical details at this time,” but according to The Hacker News, “Since Friday, the full mechanism has been published, and a working proof-of-concept has gone up on GitHub.”
  • Scale. “Searchlight Cyber estimates that more than 500 million websites use WordPress, giving the vulnerability a potentially massive impact, especially now that public proof-of-concept exploits have been released,” reports BleepingComputer.
  • Exploitation signals. According to BleepingComputer, security firm watchTowr reported that “we are beginning to see the first signs of in-the-wild exploitation.”
  • Severity ratings diverge. “WordPress’s own advisory rates the RCE chain Critical. Its CVE record scores it 7.5, only High,” notes The Hacker News.
  • Mitigations. Searchlight Cyber says “The best way to protect yourself is to update WordPress to version 7.0.2, or 6.9.5,” and lists blocking /wp-json/batch/v1 and ?rest_route=/batch/v1 at a WAF level as an interim option. Help Net Security cautions that such workarounds “may have impact on legitimate use of the site and should only be considered emergency temporary measures until you can update.”

What We Don’t Know

  • The true extent of exploitation. While watchTowr described early signs of abuse to BleepingComputer, The Hacker News notes the chain “is not on CISA’s KEV catalog, which takes confirmed exploitation, and none has been reported as of July 18.” No compromises of specific sites have been publicly confirmed in the reporting so far.
  • Who is probing the flaw. None of the cited reporting identifies the actors behind the activity watchTowr describes.
  • When full technical details will come from the discoverers. Searchlight Cyber’s advisory says only that “we are not releasing technical details at this time,” without committing to a publication date.