Is Groundhogg safe? Known vulnerabilities and latest version

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file deletion due to insufficient file path validation in the copy_file function in all versions up to, and including, 4.9.3 This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Sales Representative-level access and above, to delete arbitrary files on the server, which can easily lead to remote code execution when the right file is deleted (such as wp-config.php). This is exploitable by any user holding the plugin-defined import_contacts capability, which is granted by default to the plugin's custom Sales Representative role.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the 'ref' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.14 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.

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.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 4.9 This is due to a missing ownership and capability check on the `user` parameter within the `process_edit()` function, which allows any authenticated user with the `edit_contacts` capability to reassign a contact record's linked WordPress user ID to any arbitrary account without requiring the `edit_users` or `promote_users` capabilities. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with sales_rep-level access and above, to escalate their privileges to administrator by linking a contact to an administrator's WordPress user ID, then creating a note containing the `{auto_login_link}` replacement tag to trigger generation of a valid auto-login permissions-key URL for the administrator-linked contact, and finally visiting that URL to authenticate as the targeted administrator. The auto-login URL is stored in the note content and is readable back by the attacker via the `view_notes` and `add_notes` capabilities that the sales_rep role holds by default.

Unauthenticated Sensitive Data Exposure in Groundhogg <= 4.8.3 versions.

Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection') vulnerability in Groundhogg Groundhogg groundhogg allows Blind SQL Injection.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through 4.8.3.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Contact Identity Rebinding in all versions up to, and including, 4.9 The vulnerability exists because the `create_contact` function in the v3 REST endpoint (`POST /gh/v3/contacts`) is gated solely by the `add_contacts` capability and forwards the full request payload — including the security-bearing `user_id` column — into the upsert path of `Contacts_DB::add()`, which bypasses the ownership guard that `Contacts_DB::update()` enforces, allowing an attacker to rebind any existing contact record to an arbitrary WordPress user ID. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Sales Representative-level access and above to upsert their own contact row to point to an Administrator's user ID, then invoke the v4 email-test endpoint (`POST /gh/v4/emails/test`) — also accessible to the Sales Representative role via the `send_emails` capability — to generate an `{auto_login_url}` one-time permissions key bound to the rebound contact, and consume that link to call `wp_set_auth_cookie()` and gain a fully authenticated session as the WordPress Administrator.

import_contacts Path Traversal in Groundhogg <= 4.7.1 versions.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation WordPress plugin before 4.7.2 does not restrict the redirect target of its email preference confirmation flow to the site's own host, allowing unauthenticated attackers to redirect visitors to an arbitrary external URL by way of a crafted link.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation WordPress plugin before 4.5.13 does not validate or escape values submitted to some optional web form fields before storing them and outputting them back in an administrative area, allowing unauthenticated users to perform Stored Cross-Site Scripting attacks against high privilege users.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to generic SQL Injection via the 'tag_query' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.14 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with vendor-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database. Exploitation requires the attacker to trigger the vulnerable Legacy_Contact_Query code path by submitting an unknown filter type (e.g. filters[0][0][type]=force_fallback), which causes a FilterException that dispatches execution away from the modern query handler.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.2 via the GET /wp-json/gh/v4/contacts/<id> REST endpoint. The endpoint's permission callback checks only the role-level view_contacts capability and read_single() returns the full contact record by sequential integer ID without the object-level view_contact ownership check applied elsewhere in the codebase. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers holding view_contacts but not view_others_contacts — notably Groundhogg's built-in Sales Rep role, designed to see only its own contacts — to read any contact record on the site, including PII, contact meta, owner IDs, the admin edit URL, and (for contacts linked to a WordPress user) that user's full capability set.

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in Adrian Tobey Groundhogg groundhogg allows Path Traversal.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through <= 4.4.1.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to generic SQL Injection via the 'select' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.8 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with custom-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database. Exploitation requires the attacker to hold a Groundhogg custom role with the view_contacts capability, which is granted by default to several built-in Groundhogg roles above the base subscriber level.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to generic SQL Injection via the 'search' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.5 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with marketer-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to generic SQL Injection via 'query[select]' Parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.5 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Sales Representative-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database. The sanitized Contact_Query code path can be bypassed by supplying an invalid filter type (e.g., query[filters][0][0][type]=invalid_filter_nonexistent), causing a FilterException to be caught and execution to fall through to the unsanitized Legacy_Contact_Query path.

Sales Representative SQL Injection in Groundhogg <= 4.5 versions.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to generic SQL Injection via the 'after' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.5.4 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Sales Manager-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database. The AJAX handler wp_ajax_groundhogg_get_contacts_table has its capability check commented out and performs no nonce verification, meaning any authenticated user regardless of role can reach the vulnerable code path.

Subscriber Broken Access Control in Groundhogg < 4.4.1 versions.

Sales Representative Arbitrary File Deletion in Groundhogg <= 4.4 versions.

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to SQL Injection via the 'term' parameter in all versions up to, and including, 4.2.6.1 due to insufficient escaping on the user supplied parameter and lack of sufficient preparation on the existing SQL query. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Administrator-level access and above, to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Adrian Tobey Groundhogg groundhogg allows Stored XSS.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through <= 4.2.6.

Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in Adrian Tobey Groundhogg groundhogg allows Object Injection.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through <= 4.2.2.

Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type vulnerability in Adrian Tobey Groundhogg groundhogg allows Upload a Web Shell to a Web Server.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through <= 4.2.1.

The WordPress CRM, Email & Marketing Automation for WordPress | Award Winner — Groundhogg plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file deletion due to insufficient file path validation in the 'process_export_delete' and 'process_import_delete' functions in all versions up to, and including, 4.1.1.2. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Administrator-level access and above, to delete arbitrary files on the server, which can easily lead to remote code execution when the right file is deleted (such as wp-config.php).

The Groundhogg plugin for Wordpress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘label' parameter in versions up to, and including, 3.7.4.1 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Administrator-level access, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page. This only affects multi-site installations and installations where unfiltered_html has been disabled.

The WordPress CRM, Email & Marketing Automation for WordPress | Award Winner — Groundhogg plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file uploads due to missing file type validation in the gh_big_file_upload() function in all versions up to, and including, 3.7.3.5. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to upload arbitrary files on the affected site's server which may make remote code execution possible.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Adrian Tobey Groundhogg groundhogg allows Reflected XSS.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through <= 3.7.3.3.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Adrian Tobey Groundhogg groundhogg allows Cross Site Request Forgery.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through <= 3.4.2.3.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Groundhogg Inc. Groundhogg allows Reflected XSS.This issue affects Groundhogg: from n/a through 3.4.2.3.