CVE-2026-109236: Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce authentication bypass vulnerability
medium 4.8 published 2026-10-28
- Affected versions
- 2.8.2 and older
- Fixed in
- 2.8.3 *
- Latest version
- 2.8.4
- Severity
- Medium · CVSS 4.8
- Active installs
- 2,000+
- Type
- Authentication bypass
* The source does not name a fixed version; this is the first wordpress.org release after the last affected version.
What an attacker needs
- Access: None. No account or login is needed.
CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
What to do now
- Update Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce to 2.8.3 or newer (the latest is 2.8.4): Dashboard → Updates, or Plugins → “update now”.
- If you cannot update right away, deactivate it until you can.
- Turn on auto-updates for it: Plugins → “Enable auto-updates” on its row.
- Not sure which version you run? Check your version against every known Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce issue.
With WP-CLI:
wp plugin get customer-email-verification-for-woocommerce --field=version. - If you ran an affected version and something looks off (new admin users, spam pages, redirects), run the free scan below.
The advisory
The Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass via a Predictable Email-Verification Token in all versions up to, and including, 2.8.2. This is due to the `authenticate_user_by_email_link()` function — hooked on the `wp` action and triggered by the `cusomer_email_verify` GET parameter — lacking any capability check or nonce verification, while the `secret_code` it validates is generated as `md5(email . time())` and the `verify_otp_nonce` required to trigger token issuance via the `wp_ajax_nopriv_resend_otp` handler is emitted to every front-end visitor through `wp_localize_script`. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as a newly created, verified WooCommerce customer bound to an arbitrary email address — or to flip an existing account's `customer_email_verified` meta to verified — fully bypassing the plugin's core email-verification control. Exploitation requires the `cev_user_log` table to contain a `password` column, which is absent from the fresh-install schema shipped in version 2.8.2 but is present on sites upgraded from an older version where that column was defined.
References
- NVD CVE-2026-109236 nvd.nist.gov
- Wordfence advisory www.wordfence.com
- wordpress.org wordpress.org
- Plugin source plugins.trac.wordpress.org
Related
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Where this data comes from
- CVE record, score and references: NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), checked 2026-11-04. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Versions and install counts: wordpress.org/plugins/customer-email-verification-for-woocommerce (Plugins API), fetched 2026-11-04.
- The summary, “what an attacker needs” and “what to do” sections are our plain-English reading of the record and the plugin's release history; the quoted description is the record's own text. Spot an error? Email Daniel.