CVE-2024-28850 — johnbillion/wp-crontrol
HIGHCVE-2024-28850 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) CWE-494 vulnerability in johnbillion/wp-crontrol. A fix is available for johnbillion/wp-crontrol — see the affected versions and patch details below.
WP Crontrol possible RCE when combined with a pre-condition
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-28850.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-28850 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
johnbillion/wp-crontrolReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
WP Crontrol controls the cron events on WordPress websites. WP Crontrol includes a feature that allows administrative users to create events in the WP-Cron system that store and execute PHP code subject to the restrictive security permissions documented here. While there is no known vulnerability in this feature on its own, there exists potential for this feature to be vulnerable to RCE if it were specifically targeted via vulnerability chaining that exploited a separate SQLi (or similar) vulnerability. This is exploitable on a site if one of the below preconditions are met, the site is vulnerable to a writeable SQLi vulnerability in any plugin, theme, or WordPress core, the site's database is compromised at the hosting level, the site is vulnerable to a method of updating arbitrary options in the wp_options table, or the site is vulnerable to a method of triggering an arbitrary action, filter, or function with control of the parameters. As a hardening measure, WP Crontrol version 1.16.2 ships with a new feature that prevents tampering of the code stored in a PHP cron event.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | johnbillion/wp-crontrol | all versions | 1.16.2composer require johnbillion/wp-crontrol:^1.16.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for johnbillion/wp-crontrol, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update johnbillion/wp-crontrol to 1.16.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-28850 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-28850 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-28850. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-28850 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-28850 across Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.