CVE-2026-120538

8.1

Smub Easy Digital Downloads - eCommerce Payments and Subscriptions made easy Improper Authentication Vulnerability

CVSS: 8.1, high high CVSS v3.1
EPSS, next 30 days: 0.4% higher than 37.2% of scored CVEs
Exploitation: No public evidence
Published: 3 Nov 2026yesterday

Description

The Easy Digital Downloads plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authentication bypass leading to administrator account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 3.7.2. During a PayPal guest checkout, the email address entered in the guest-checkout field is trusted as proof of identity: edd_get_purchase_form_user() binds the new guest order to an existing WordPress user purely on an email-address match, rewriting the order's user_id to that user's ID. The PayPal capture sink PurchaseUser::maybe_log_in_after_capture() then looked the user up by the order email (get_user_by( 'email', $order->email )) and, when $order->user_id equalled that user's ID (which the email-binding step guarantees), issued an authenticated session with wp_set_auth_cookie(). An unauthenticated attacker who starts a guest checkout using an administrator's email address (where that administrator has no existing EDD customer record) and completes the PayPal purchase flow therefore receives an authenticated session as that administrator, a full account takeover. The same sink is reachable through the standard PayPal checkout and the REST UnbrandedCard and Fastlane flows.

Details

Vendor: Smub
Product: Easy Digital Downloads - eCommerce Payments and Subscriptions made easy
Weakness: CWE-287 (opens in a new tab)
Status: Deferred
Updated: 3 Nov 2026
Assigner: security@wordfence.com

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References 7

Other references 7

The kind is read from NVD's tags where present and from the shape of the URL otherwise, so treat it as a hint.

Other Smub CVEs

Every Smub CVE we hold

Same vendor in what we hold, not a known link between the flaws.

CVE-2026-76010 Smub Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes - NextGEN Gallery Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type Vulnerability EPSS 0.8% 8.8, high
CVE-2026-82814 Smub Duplicator - Backups & Migration Plugin - Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More Deserialization of Untrusted Data Vulnerability EPSS 0.7% 8.8, high

Beyond this page

Is CVE-2026-120538 in your network?

This page tells you how dangerous CVE-2026-120538 is out there. Whether it sits on one of your devices, only a scan of your own network can tell. That is what our systems do, every day, for the companies we protect.

EXYS7600 OCELOT

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EXYS7950 KONDRA

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Check your exposure

Assembled from the NVD 2.0 API, the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog and FIRST EPSS. Scores are as of our last collection on 4 Nov 2026, not the live upstream state.