As the article points out, one issue is that the official Docker container for PHP has this configuration.

However at least in principle all of the affected versions [0] could be automatically updated. Not sure if they have set it to auto-update as far back as 4.7 though.

[0] except 4.9.3 which has a bug in its automatic update mechanism.

pearcmd and register_argc_argv are just examples. get_page_template was unsanitized in some themes, that's the flaw, you could then combine it with one of a million unauthorized file upload in wordpress plugins to try and eval code. An attacker would like to use upload + this chain of requires (instead of just uploading a php) because of hardened configuration and the pwn can go unnoticed in the logs.

Also, with pearcmd (if you can get to that, there's no open_basedir) and containers a novice sysadmin will publish insecure sites.

This score specifically means that given some specific conditions, anyone can execute code over the network on a vulnerable WordPress setup. Is this not true?

> This is a somewhat situational Wordpress RCE that impacts only a couple themes. reply

That is dangerously incorrect, a whole lot of themes are vulnerable. The main pre-condition, "presence of a top-level directory named 'page-xxx' like 'page-templates' in the theme's directory" is actually an official recommendation in the WordPress documentation.

See here: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/classic-themes/templa...

> As discussed in Organizing Theme Files, WordPress can recognize page templates stored in the theme’s root folder or in a first-level subdirectory of the theme folder. *The page-templates/ folder is a common convention* for organizing global page templates, but it is not required. Page templates can also be stored in other first-level subdirectories, such as templates/ or page_templates/.