Summary
CVE-2026-49767 is a critical Broken Authentication vulnerability in the wpForo Forum WordPress plugin, developed by Tomdever (gVectors Team), affecting all versions up to and including 3.1.0. With a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.8 (Critical), the flaw enables unauthenticated remote attackers to bypass authentication controls and perform actions restricted to privileged users — including mutation of the administrator account email address. The vendor has released a patched version (3.1.1) and immediate upgrade is strongly recommended.
Technical details
- Root cause: The plugin contains an authentication bypass via an alternate path or channel (CWE-288), allowing unauthenticated HTTP requests to reach privileged functionality without valid credentials.
- Trigger conditions: No authentication, no prior privileges, and no user interaction are required. The vulnerability is exploitable over the network with low attack complexity.
- Attack vector: An unauthenticated remote attacker sends crafted requests that circumvent authentication checks, gaining the ability to execute actions normally reserved for administrators — specifically confirmed to include administrator email mutation, which can facilitate full account takeover via password-reset flows.
- Impact: Successful exploitation results in full compromise across all three security dimensions — Confidentiality (High), Integrity (High), and Availability (High) — potentially enabling complete takeover of the affected WordPress site.
Affected software
- wpForo Forum plugin by Tomdever (gVectors Team) — all versions up to and including 3.1.0
Severity
- CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 9.8 (Critical)
- Vector string:
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Mitigation and recommended actions
- Immediate: Update the wpForo Forum plugin to version 3.1.1 or later, which contains the vendor-issued security fix for this vulnerability.
- If immediate patching is not possible: Temporarily disable the wpForo Forum plugin and restrict access to wpForo-specific URL paths (e.g.,
/community/,/wp-content/plugins/wpforo/) via a web application firewall (WAF) or server-level access controls until the update can be applied.
IONIX Status
The IONIX research team is tracking ongoing exploitation attempts and recommends immediate patching. Potentially affected assets are outlined in this post.

