CVE-2020-11037 Potential Observable Timing Discrepancy in Wagtail
An attacker on a local network can potentially recover shared passwords for protected pages via timing attacks in Wagtail CMS.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2020-11037?
CVE-2020-11037 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Wagtail, published on 30 Apr 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official 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.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-11037?
7 open source packages ship an affected version, including wagtail. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
wagtail PyPI | All versions | 2.7.3 |
wagtail PyPI | All versions | 2.7.3 |
wagtail PyPI | From 2.7 | 2.7.3, 2.8.2 |
wagtail PyPI | From 2.8rc1 | 2.8.2 |
wagtail PyPI | From 2.8rc1 | 2.8.2 |
wagtail PyPI | From 2.9rc1 | 2.9 |
1 more packages
wagtail PyPI | From 2.9rc1 | 2.9 |
Products include Torchbox Wagtail.
How do I fix CVE-2020-11037?
Upgrade wagtail to a fixed version for your release line: 2.7.3, 2.8.2 or 2.9.
Is CVE-2020-11037 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-11037 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Wagtail
- CVE-2026-54263 Wagtail: Reflected XSS in dynamic image URL generator view
- CVE-2026-54261 Wagtail: Improper permission handling in image preview
- CVE-2026-44197 Wagtail: Improper permission handling when comparing revisions
- CVE-2026-44199 Wagtail: Improper permission handling when deleting form submissions
- CVE-2026-44200 Wagtail: Improper permission handling when copying pages
Sources
Also known as GHSA-jjjr-3jcw-f8v6, PYSEC-2020-153.