Cloudflare WAF protects WordPress applications from two high-severity vulnerabilities
Key Points
- Unauthenticated RCE (CVE-2026-63030) blocked
- SQL injection (CVE-2026-60137) blocked
- WAF rules deployed to all proxied customers
Summary
Cloudflare deployed WAF rules on 2026-07-17T17:03:00Z to protect WordPress sites from two linked high-severity vulnerabilities disclosed prior to public release. The protections block exploit traffic for an SQL injection (CVE-2026-60137) and an unauthenticated remote code execution (CVE-2026-63030). Rules are active for all customers whose traffic is proxied through Cloudflare (free and paid tiers).
Key Points
- What was deployed
- Two new WAF rules that block requests associated with the vulnerabilities.
- Deployed at 17:03 UTC on July 17, 2026.
- Vulnerabilities
- CVE-2026-60137 — SQL injection affecting WordPress 6.8 and later (rating: High).
- CVE-2026-63030 — Unauthenticated RCE via the REST API batch endpoint affecting WordPress 6.9 and later when a persistent object cache is not in use (rating: Critical). Related to the SQLi.
- Affected versions and fixes
- SQLi present from 6.8+; fixed in 6.8.6 (SQLi fix only).
- RCE present from 6.9+; fixed in 6.9.5, 7.0.2, and 7.1 Beta 2.
- Versions earlier than 6.8 are not affected.
- WordPress is forcing automatic updates to affected sites, but you should still verify.
- WAF rule and operational details
- Managed ruleset IDs: CVE-2026-60137 = 1c060d3a371549219ee290d7ed933fcc (block); CVE-2026-63030 = 7dfb2bd4708d4b88b9911dc0550664b6 (block).
- Free ruleset IDs: CVE-2026-60137 = db003b39b7774859a8d588ce33697a1a (block); CVE-2026-63030 = ebd3f2df15c74ddcbf6220c9b5ec246a (block).
Recommended actions for engineers
- Patch immediately: confirm WordPress is updated to a patched release or backport (6.8.6, 6.9.5, 7.0.2, or 7.1 Beta 2 as applicable).
- Verify your site is proxied through Cloudflare (orange cloud) to ensure WAF coverage.
- Inspect firewall logs for blocked requests matching the rule IDs above and look for exploitation indicators in access logs and DB query logs.
- Do not rely solely on WAF: treat the WAF as temporary mitigation and complete patching/verification of backups and integrity checks.
- If you run a persistent object cache, note the RCE requires it to be not in use; still apply patches.
References
- WordPress security release and backport details (official announcement)
- Cloudflare WAF rule IDs (listed above)