CVE-2026-92975: Groundhogg privilege escalation vulnerability
high 8.1 published 2026-10-10 · updated 2026-10-13
- Affected versions
- 4.8.3 and older
- Fixed in
- 4.9 *
- Latest version
- 4.10
- Severity
- High · CVSS 8.1
- Active installs
- 2,000+
- Type
- Privilege escalation
* 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 (per the CVSS score).
CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
What to do now
- Update Groundhogg to 4.9 or newer (the latest is 4.10): 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 Groundhogg issue.
With WP-CLI:
wp plugin get groundhogg --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 Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 4.8.3 via the `create_support_user()` function. This is due to the function identifying the support account solely by matching against publicly hardcoded constants — `user_login` `'groundhogg'` and email addresses `'support@groundhogg.io'` / `'help@groundhogg.io'` — where the `in_array()` email-equality check at line 238 is not a security boundary because any user fully controls their own email value. This makes it possible for an attacker with an account whose `user_login` is `'groundhogg'` and whose `user_email` matches one of the hardcoded support constants to have that account silently promoted to administrator — and additionally to super admin on multisite when the triggering administrator holds `manage_network_options` — resulting in full site takeover. Exploitation requires a two-actor flow: the attacker must first obtain or pre-plant an account with the hardcoded credentials (possible when open user registration is enabled or another account-creation path exists), after which a legitimate administrator must invoke the support-access feature via the `submit_ticket` or `process_send_support_access` entry points to trigger the promotion.
References
- NVD CVE-2026-92975 nvd.nist.gov
- Wordfence advisory www.wordfence.com
- github.com github.com
- Plugin source plugins.trac.wordpress.org
Related
Ran an affected version? Check your site for signs of a hack
The free scan reads the public side of your site and looks for spam pages, hidden redirects, injected scripts and blacklist entries. No login, no install, about a minute.
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/groundhogg (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.