HTTP Headers <= 1.19.2 — Authenticated (Administrator+) External Control of File Name or Path to RCE via 'hh_htpasswd_path' and 'hh_www_authenticate_user' Parameters

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under HTTP Headers.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.

What to do

1. Update to version 1.19.3, or a newer patched version
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch HTTP Headers to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Chiao-Lin Yu (Steven Meow).

The HTTP Headers plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to External Control of File Name or Path leading to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to and including 1.19.2. This is due to insufficient validation of the file path stored in the 'hh_htpasswd_path' option and lack of sanitization on the 'hh_www_authenticate_user' option value. The plugin allows administrators to set an arbitrary file path for the htpasswd file location and does not validate that the path has a safe file extension (e.g., restricting to .htpasswd). Additionally, the username field used for HTTP Basic Authentication is written directly into the file without sanitization. The apache_auth_credentials() function constructs the file content using the unsanitized username via sprintf('%s:{SHA}%s', $user, ...), and update_auth_credentials() writes this content to the attacker-controlled path via file_put_contents(). This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Administrator-level access and above, to write arbitrary content (including PHP code) to arbitrary file paths on the server, effectively achieving Remote Code Execution.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

• Advisorywordfence.com

Related CVEs

Timeline

1. Apr 21, 2026

   CVE published

   Severity high, CVSS 7.2

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated