Attackers are mass-exploiting a flaw in Gravity SMTP, a WordPress email plugin installed on about 100,000 sites, to harvest credentials without any login. The bug (CVE-2026-4020) leaves a REST API endpoint with a permission check that always passes, so a single unauthenticated request returns a 365 KB system report containing API keys, secrets, and OAuth tokens for connected email services like Amazon SES, Mailjet, and Zoho, plus detailed software-stack information. Wordfence has blocked more than 17 million attempts, with activity spiking around June 6 and 7. A patch shipped in version 2.1.5, but updating does not revoke keys attackers may have already grabbed.
Attackers compromised the build pipeline of ShapedPlugin, a WordPress plugin maker, and slipped malware into legitimate updates delivered to paying customers through the vendor's own update system. The tainted releases install a fake plugin that impersonates WooCommerce components, steals site credentials, and gives attackers the ability to write files remotely. Three paid plugins are affected: Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce, Real Testimonials Pro, and Smart Post Show Pro. The backdoor was injected into Pro builds on May 21, with the first customer reports on June 10. Versions on WordPress.org stayed clean, pointing to a compromise of the vendor's release infrastructure rather than the plugins themselves.
Attackers compromised the content-delivery network of Awesome Motive, one of the biggest WordPress plugin makers, and injected malicious JavaScript into files served for OptinMonster, TrustPulse, and PushEngage, plugins running on more than 1.2 million sites. Discovered by Sansec, the code only triggered when a logged-in WordPress administrator viewed an affected site, at which point it stole authentication tokens, created a hidden rogue admin account, and installed a self-concealing backdoor plugin that exposed a web shell. The bad files were served on June 12 to 14. Awesome Motive says attackers stole a CDN API key after breaching its marketing site, and has since rotated credentials.
Wordfence reports active exploitation of CVE-2026-3300 (CVSS 9.8), a remote code execution flaw in the Everest Forms Pro WordPress plugin (about 4,000 active installations) affecting all versions up to 1.9.12. The Calculation Addon's process_filter() function concatenates user-submitted form-field values into a PHP string and passes it to eval() without proper escaping; sanitize_text_field() does not escape single quotes, so unauthenticated attackers can inject and run arbitrary PHP by submitting a crafted value in any string-type field when a form uses the Complex Calculation feature. Exploitation began April 13; Wordfence has blocked 29,300+ attempts. The common payload creates a rogue admin named 'diksimarina.' Patch 1.9.13 shipped March 18.
Hackers are exploiting CVE-2026-8206, a critical privilege-escalation flaw in the Kirki - Freeform Page Builder WordPress plugin, to take over any account including administrators. Defiant's Wordfence blocked over 222 attempts against customers in 24 hours. The plugin is active on more than 500,000 sites; the bug was introduced in version 6.0.0 and affects up to 6.0.6 (nearly 40% of the userbase). It stems from a custom REST password-reset endpoint that accepts an arbitrary email: when a username is supplied, the plugin sends a valid reset link to the attacker-controlled address instead of the owner's. The vendor fixed it in 6.0.7 on May 18; admins should upgrade or disable immediately.
GoDaddy has documented a WordPress malware campaign that hides command-and-control data inside Steam Community profile comments, abusing Valve's platform to avoid running separate C2 infrastructure and evade detection. Around 1,980 WordPress sites have been infected since July 2025. The first-stage malware loads a Steam profile on each page view and extracts text from benign-looking comments that conceal a payload encoded with six invisible Unicode characters such as zero-width joiners. The decoder maps the invisible characters to bytes, reconstructs a URL to hello-mywordl[.]info, and injects JavaScript disguised as a legitimate library into every frontend page. The final stage is a backdoor that responds to POST requests carrying a specific authentication cookie.
Hackers are actively exploiting CVE-2026-8732, a critical unauthenticated flaw in the WP Maps Pro WordPress plugin that lets attackers create rogue administrator accounts. The plugin, a premium interactive-map and store-locator tool with over 15,800 sales on Envato Market, is affected in versions 6.1.0 and older. The flaw stems from a 'temporary access' feature meant to let vendor support staff troubleshoot customer sites: the AJAX endpoint was reachable by unauthenticated users and relied only on a nonce exposed in frontend JavaScript. A crafted request creates a new administrator user, generates a passwordless login URL, and sends it to a remote system. Researcher David Brown reported it.
Three concurrent WordPress plugin issues are putting millions of sites at risk. Funnel Builder, used on 40,000+ WooCommerce sites, is being actively exploited: an unauthenticated attacker hits an unprotected checkout endpoint, modifies global plugin settings, and injects JavaScript skimmers into checkout pages. Avada Builder, with 1 million installs and bundled with the Avada theme, ships fixes in 3.15.3 for CVE-2026-4782 (CVSS 6.5 arbitrary file read by Subscriber-level users, exposes wp-config.php) and CVE-2026-4798 (CVSS 7.5 unauthenticated time-based blind SQL injection when WooCommerce was used then deactivated). Burst Statistics CVE-2026-8181 is an auth bypass already being exploited on 200,000 sites.
BleepingComputer reports a phishing campaign that bought Google Ads to push a fake GoDaddy ManageWP login page to the top of search results. ManageWP is GoDaddy's centralized dashboard for managing multiple WordPress sites - so a successful phish gives the attacker simultaneous access to dozens or hundreds of sites under one account. The fake page is a near-perfect clone of managewp.com hosted on a typosquat domain; victims who enter credentials are redirected to the real site to mask the theft. Same Google Ads abuse template used recently against AWS, Notion, and other developer-tool brands.
A WordPress security researcher found a backdoor that's been quietly running on 70,000 websites for five years. The Quick Page/Post Redirect plugin had a hidden self-updater added in 2020 that pointed not to WordPress.org but to anadnet[.]com, an attacker-controlled domain. In March 2021 that updater silently delivered a tampered version of the plugin - replacing the real plugin with one that included a passive backdoor. The backdoor only triggers for visitors who aren't logged in (so site owners never see it firing) and was used to inject SEO spam into pages served to Google's crawler. WordPress.org pulled the plugin pending review.
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