Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture Plugin

On February 20th, 2026, a critical Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability was publicly disclosed in WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture, a premium WordPress plugin with an estimated 6,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to upload...

The Increasing Role of AI in Vulnerability Research

At Wordfence, we run a bug bounty program that pays out mid-six figures per year to researchers in bug bounties for WordPress related vulnerabilities. Funding this research helps us improve security for the WordPress community overall, and helps us secure our customers by rolling out protection f...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (January 5, 2026 to January 11, 2026)

Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugin and themes at no cost to vendors? Researchers can earn up to $31,200 per vulnerability , for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, and we...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (December 8, 2025 to December 14, 2025)

Last week, there were 246 vulnerabilities disclosed in 226 WordPress Plugins and 9 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 81 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilities...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Alone Theme

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters!📢 🌞 Spring into Summer with Wordfence! Now through August 4, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions from our ‘High Threat’ list in software with fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,200 per...

Revolutionizing Responsible Disclosure: Introducing the Wordfence Vulnerability Management Portal for WordPress Vendors

The Wordfence team is excited to announce the official launch of the Wordfence Vulnerability Management Portal, the latest addition to the Wordfence Intelligence suite. This new interface is designed to improve and simplify the vulnerability disclosure process between the Wordfence team and...

7,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Unauthenticated Critical Vulnerabilities in LatePoint WordPress Plugin

🦸 👻 Calling all superheroes and haunters! Introducing theCybersecurity Month Spooktacular Haunt and the WordPress Superhero Challenge for the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program! Through November 11th, 2024: All in-scope vulnerability types for WordPress plugins/themes with = 1,000 active installations...

20,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in WCFM – WooCommerce Frontend Manager WordPress Plugin

📢 Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugins and themes at no cost to vendors? Through October 7th, 2024, XSS vulnerabilities in all plugins and themes with =1,000 Active Installs are in scope for all researchers. In addition, through October 14th, 2024 , r esearche...

Critical Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability in MP3 Audio Player WordPress Plugin Affects Over 20,000 Sites

📢 Did you know Wordfence runs aBug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugin and themes at no cost to vendors? Through October 7th, 2024, XSS vulnerabilities in all plugins and themes with =1,000 Active Installs are in scope for all researchers. In addition, through October 14th, 2024 , r esearcher...

Malware Scanning: An Essential Layer of Website Security

Wordfence recently launched Wordfence CLI, a high performance command line malware scanner, which makes use of our extensive set of malware detection signatures to rapidly scan file systems for infections. In recent years, the WordPress community has seen a shift in emphasis towards prevention,...

Wordfence 7.10.0 Released!

Wordfence remains the number one security plugin of choice for website owners serious about protecting their investment and their customers. Our Threat Intelligence team and engineering team stay abreast of the newest threats and ensure that Wordfence is able to protect against them. But keeping ...

Update Now! Severe Vulnerability Impacting 600,000 Sites Patched in Limit Login Attempts

On January 26, 2023, the Wordfence team responsibly disclosed an unauthenticated stored Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability in Limit Login Attempts, a WordPress plugin installed on over 600,000 sites that provides site owners with the ability to block IP addresses that have made repeated failed...

Securing Port 443: The Gateway To A New Universe

At Wordfence our business is to secure over 4 million WordPress websites and keep them secure. My background is in network operations, and then I transitioned into software development because my ops role was at a scale where I found myself writing a lot of code. This led me to founding startups,...

Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability In Download Manager Plugin

On May 30, 2022, Security Researcher Rafie Muhammad reported a reflected Cross-Site Scripting XSS vulnerability to us that they discovered in Download Manager, a WordPress plugin installed on over 100,000 sites. On request, we assigned a vulnerability identifier of CVE-2022-1985. All Wordfence...

XSS Vulnerability Patched in Plugin Designed to Enhance WooCommerce

Note: To receive disclosures like this in your inbox the moment they’re published, you can subscribe to our WordPress Security Mailing List. On November 11, 2021 the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated the responsible disclosure process for a vulnerability we discovered in “Variation...

Critical Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability Patched in Avada Builder WordPress Plugin

On May 13th, 2026, we received a submission for a critical Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Deletion vulnerability in Avada Builder, a premium WordPress plugin with an estimated 1,000,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to delete arbitrary...

How a Webmail Log File Became a Root-Level Backdoor

THREAT ANALYSIS May 2026 · Forensic Case Study A forensic breakdown of how an attacker turned CyberPanel's SnappyMail logging into a persistent webshell that survived every WordPress cleanup attempt. A WordPress site owner reported redirect malware on their site. They found that clicking anywhere...

22,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Motors WordPress Theme

📢In case you missed it, Wordfence just published itsannual WordPress security report for 2024. Read it now to learn more about the evolving risk landscape of WordPress so you can keep your sites protected in 2025 and beyond. On May 2nd, 2025, we received a submission for a Privilege Escalation...

10,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in UiPress lite WordPress Plugin

📢In case you missed it, Wordfence just published itsannual WordPress security report for 2024. Read it now to learn more about the evolving risk landscape of WordPress so you can keep your sites protected in 2025 and beyond. On March 29th, 2025, we received a submission for a Remote Code Executio...

10,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability in Eventin WordPress Plugin

📢In case you missed it, Wordfence just published itsannual WordPress security report for 2024. Read it now to learn more about the evolving risk landscape of WordPress so you can keep your sites protected in 2025 and beyond. On April 6th, 2025, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Read...

30,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in Security & Malware scan by CleanTalk WordPress Plugin

On December 7th, 2024, we received a submission for an Arbitrary File Upload vulnerability in Security & Malware scan by CleanTalk, a WordPress plugin with more than 30,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to upload arbitrary files to a...

WordPress Database Scanning For Malware Released in Wordfence CLI 5.0.1

Today we’re excited to announce the recent release of Wordfence CLI version 5.0.1 which includes a much requested feature from security analysts, hosting providers and ops teams: Database scanning for WordPress. Now you can scan any WordPress database you have access to for malware and...

WordPress Security Research: A Beginner’s Series

Learn How To Find WordPress Vulnerabilities Step-by-Step Welcome to the inaugural post of our WordPress Security Research Beginners Series! With the success of the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program, we wanted to provide emerging vulnerability researchers, and experienced Bug Bounty Hunters, with a...

WordPress 6.5.5 Security Release – What You Need to Know

Did you know Wordfence runs a Bug Bounty Program for all WordPress plugin and themes at no cost to vendors? Researchers can earn up to $10,400, for all in-scope vulnerabilities submitted to our Bug Bounty Program! Find a vulnerability, submit the details directly to us, and we handle all the rest...

Earn up to $10,000 for Vulnerabilities in WordPress Software – 6X Rewards in the Wordfence Holiday Bug Extravaganza!

At Wordfence our mission is to Secure The Web. WordPress powers over 40% of the Web, and Wordfence secures over 4 million WordPress websites. Today we are announcing that for the next 20 days, Wordfence will be paying out some of the highest bug bounties in the history of WordPress to help find...

Wordfence 7.7.0 Is Out! Here Are The Changes

Wordfence 7.7.0 has just been released and as usual, it includes several awesome enhancements and updates for our security conscious WordPress publishers and e-commerce websites. This post goes into a little more detail on each change weve included. We dont usually post additional detail like thi...

Increase In Malware Sightings on GoDaddy Managed Hosting

Today, March 15, 2022, The Wordfence Incident Response team alerted our Threat Intelligence team to an increase in infected websites hosted on GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress service, which includes MediaTemple, tsoHost, 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet, and Host Europe Managed WordPress sites...

Announcing Wordfence Care and Wordfence Response

Today Im incredibly excited to announce that we are launching two new products: Wordfence Care and Wordfence Response. Lets start with a fun animation that explains our new product suite! In the post below, Ill describe in detail the two incredible new products we are launching and why they are...

You’ve Found a Vulnerability! Now What? A Guide to Responsible Disclosure.

Information security researchers make a valuable contribution to our online security by finding vulnerabilities and facilitating getting them fixed. Wordfence has been finding and disclosing vulnerabilities in WordPress core, WordPress plugins, and WordPress themes since 2011. Our research has...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Sensitive Information Exposure Vulnerability in Gravity SMTP Plugin

On March 30th, 2026, we publicly disclosed a Sensitive Information Exposure vulnerability in Gravity SMTP, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 100,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to retrieve detailed system configuration data and,...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Everest Forms Pro Plugin

On March 30th, 2026, we publicly disclosed a critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability in Everest Forms Pro, a WordPress plugin with an estimated 4,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged by unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary PHP code on the server, leading to...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (April 13, 2026 to April 19, 2026)

Last week, there were 139 vulnerabilities disclosed in 118 WordPress Plugins and 10 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 85 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabilitie...

10,000 WordPress Sites Protected Against Site Reset and Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Demo Importer Plus WordPress Plugin

On November 27th, 2025, we received a submission for a Site Reset and Privilege Escalation vulnerability in Demo Importer Plus, a WordPress plugin with more than 10,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged to trigger a full site reset and assign the administrator role to the...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Post SMTP Plugin

On October 11th, 2025, we received a submission for an Account Takeover via Email Log Disclosure vulnerability in Post SMTP, a WordPress plugin with more than 400,000 active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to view email logs, including password...

Use Genuine Wordfence and Stay Secure, Stay Supported, and Avoid Malware, Vulnerabilities and Backdoors

Genuine Wordfence is only available on Wordfence.com or from the WordPress Plugin Repository. Given our popularity and excellent reputation, there are unfortunately quite a few nulled or counterfeit versions of Wordfence, and plugins that modify Wordfence in the wild. Some of these counterfeit...

A (Beta) Audio Roundup of September’s WordPress Vulnerabilities

For those of you that want to stay abreast of the newest vulnerabilities in the WP ecosystem, but like to multitask, here's an audio roundup of the vulnerabilities we published in the month of September. This is something new I'm trying. The conversation is AI generated by Google's NotebookLM...

3 More Plugins Infected in WordPress.org Supply Chain Attack Due to Compromised Developer Passwords

Update 1: As of 12:36PM EST, another plugin has been infected. Weve updated the list below to include this fourth plugin and the plugins team has been notified. Update 2: As of 2:20 PM EST, two more plugins appear to have malicious commits, however, the releases have not officially been made...

Wordfence Launches Wordfence Intelligence for Hosts and Network Defenders

This morning the Wordfence team is launching Wordfence Intelligence live at Black Hat 2022 in Las Vegas. Our entire team is here in Las Vegas, including our international team members. Id like to tell you more about what were launching and how Wordfence Intelligence will help us go even further t...

Friday Fun: From Idea to Animated Film

Its Friday, and I thought wed have fun talking about something a little different. At Wordfence, one of my priorities is fostering a strong creative team and culture, and investing in creators. Emily Dalmas joined us as a full-time producer almost a year ago via her job as Associate Producer for...

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (August 3, 2026 to August 9, 2026)

Last week, there were 294 vulnerabilities disclosed in 233 WordPress Plugins and 14 WordPress Themes that have been added to the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability Database, and there were 149 Vulnerability Researchers that contributed to WordPress Security last week. Review those vulnerabiliti...

Important Notice: Preserving Free Access While Evolving the Wordfence Intelligence Vulnerability API

Update: Thanks to all of our readers who pointed out the incorrect year. The correct date is March 9th,2026 and we have updated this post to reflect that. We apologize for the oversight on our part in providing the wrong year in the post and email. This does not affect any Wordfence Free, Premium...

100,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Advanced Custom Fields: Extended WordPress Plugin

On November 18th, 2025, we received a submission for an unauthenticated Remote Code Execution vulnerability in Advanced Custom Fields: Extended, a WordPress plugin with more than 100,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged to execute code remotely. Props to dudekmar who...

Pushing Boundaries With Claude Code

Claude Code stormed onto the programming scene when Anthropic launched it in February of this year. It moved, what Andrej Karpathy has called "The Autonomy Slider" from around a three to a solid eight. What this means is that you can give Claude Code direction, it will come up with a plan to...

Attackers Actively Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in Motors Theme

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters! 📢 🌞 Spring into Summer with Wordfence! Now through August 4, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions from our ‘High Threat’ list in software with fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,200 per...

WordPress Security Research Series: WordPress Security Architecture

Welcome to Part 2 of the WordPress Security Research Beginner Series! If you haven’t had a chance, please review the series introduction blog post for more details on the goal of this series and what to expect as well as Part 1, which covers WordPress Request Architecture and Hooks. In WordPress...

Post Action Report: Bad Firewall Rule Released to WPEngine Customers Wednesday

On Wednesday afternoon a small percentage of WPEngine websites using a paid version of Wordfence experienced a 500 Internal Server Error or white screen on their sites due to an erroneous firewall rule that we released. If you have experienced this issue, please check your email which contains...

400,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Unauthenticated SQL Injection Vulnerability in Ally WordPress Plugin

On February 4th, 2026, we received a submission for an SQL Injection vulnerability in Ally, a WordPress plugin estimated to have more than 400,000 active installations. This vulnerability can be leveraged to extract sensitive data from the database, such as password hashes. Props to Drew Webber...

20,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Backdoor Vulnerability in LA-Studio Element Kit for Elementor WordPress Plugin

On January 12th, 2026, we received a submission for a Backdoor vulnerability in the LA-Studio Element Kit for Elementor, a WordPress plugin with more than 20,000+ active installations. This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to create malicious administrator users...

Wordfence Bug Bounty Program Monthly Report – September 2025

Last month in September 2025, the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program received 374 vulnerability submissions from our growing community of security researchers working to improve the overall security posture of the WordPress ecosystem. These submissions are reviewed, triaged, and processed by the...

40,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability in UiCore Elements WordPress Plugin

📢 Calling all Vulnerability Researchers and Bug Bounty Hunters!📢 🌞 Spring into Summer with Wordfence! Now through September 4, 2025, earn 2X bounty rewards forall in-scope submissions from our ‘High Threat’ list in software with fewer than 5 million active installs. Bounties up to $31,200 per...