WordPress security changelog
HIGH CVE-2026-4021 Deferred

Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe: Privilege escalation or authentication bypass

Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe is affected by privilege escalation or authentication bypass. The vulnerable path is reachable without authentication. A successful request can grant permissions or access that the caller should not possess. The published affected range is <= 28.1.5.

CVE / CNA score 8.1 CVSS 3.1 · security@wordfence.com
NVD score Pending NVD has not published its own CVSS assessment.
Component
Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe
Plugin slug
contest-gallery
Affected
<= 28.1.5
Safe version
> 28.1.5
Published
Mar 24, 2026
Weakness
CWE-287 — Improper Authentication

This CVE was published Mar 24, 2026 and is one of 55 known issues for this plugin.

What to do

Update, patch or deactivate.

Update Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe to a release after 28.1.5, or disable and remove it until a fixed version is available.

A safe version is available, so updating to that version or later is the preferred remediation. If an immediate update is not practical, consider a targeted application patch or temporarily restricting the affected functionality.

Deactivate only when warranted by your risk profile, or when advised by your hosting provider in the limited circumstances where the vulnerability cannot otherwise be mitigated. If you’re unsure which action is appropriate, contact Fused or your hosting provider for guidance.

Source record

Technical description

The Contest Gallery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to an authentication bypass leading to admin account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 28.1.5. This is due to the email confirmation handler in `users-registry-check-after-email-or-pin-confirmation.php` using the user's email string in a `WHERE ID = %s` clause instead of the numeric user ID, combined with an unauthenticated key-based login endpoint in `ajax-functions-frontend.php`. When the non-default `RegMailOptional=1` setting is enabled, an attacker can register with a crafted email starting with the target user ID (e.g., `1poc@example.test`), trigger the confirmation flow to overwrite the admin's `user_activation_key` via MySQL integer coercion, and then use the `post_cg1l_login_user_by_key` AJAX action to authenticate as the admin without any credentials. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to take over any WordPress administrator account and gain full site control.

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

References

Primary and upstream sources