CVEvulnerability
CVE-2026-15341
9.8 CRITICAL
Official page ↗
- Status
- Deferred
- Published
- 2026-08-15
- Last modified
- 2026-08-20
- Assigner
- [email protected]
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 9.8 CRITICAL — CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-287
Description
The User Session Synchronizer plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass leading to Account Takeover in all versions up to, and including, 1.4.0. The `synchronize_session()` function, hooked on `init` and therefore executed on every request, performs no nonce, capability, or shared-secret validation against the attacker-supplied `ussync-key`, `ussync-token`, and `ussync-ref` parameters; when `ussync-key` references an unregistered slot, `get_option()` returns `false` for both the secret key and the domain list, causing the AES-256-CBC encryption key to degrade to the fully predictable `md5('')` and the referer allowlist to collapse to an empty-string match, while the AES IV is unconditionally hard-coded as `md5('another-secret')`. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to supply a crafted request encrypting any known or guessable user email address in the `ussync-ref` parameter, causing the handler to call `wp_set_auth_cookie()` for the matched user and granting full authentication as that user — including administrators — with no prior knowledge of site secrets.
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-287 Improper Authentication weakness
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-session-synchronizer/tags/1.4.0/includes/class-user-session-synchronizer.php#L117 plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-session-synchronizer/tags/1.4.0/includes/class-user-session-synchronizer.php#L286 plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-session-synchronizer/tags/1.4.0/includes/class-user-session-synchronizer.php#L310 plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-session-synchronizer/tags/1.4.0/includes/class-user-session-synchronizer.php#L422 plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-session-synchronizer/tags/1.4.0/includes/class-user-session-synchronizer.php#L598 plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-session-synchronizer/tags/1.4.0/includes/class-user-session-synchronizer.php#L631 plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/cbc32e6d-47c5-4050-ba77-5a54203fe56a?source=cve www.wordfence.com