# SecuPress Free <= 2.7.2 - Unauthenticated Limit Login Attempts Bypass via XML-RPC

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-1536
- **Plugin:** SecuPress with Simple SSL – Simple and Performant Security (`secupress`), https://wordpress.org/plugins/secupress/
- **Affected versions:** all versions before 2.7.3
- **Fixed in:** 2.7.3 (Update to 2.7.3 or later.)
- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)
- **Weakness:** CWE-307
- **Usage among sites WPSec scans:** plugin Low, affected versions Low (as of 2026-10-23)
- **Attack surface analysis:** https://attacksurface.wpsec.com/plugin/secupress
- **Fix released:** 2026-10-22
- **Published:** 2026-10-23
- **URL:** https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1536/

## Description

The SecuPress with Simple SSL plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to a brute force protection bypass in all versions up to, and including, 2.7.2 due to the Limit Login Attempts feature ignoring any authentication request with an empty $_POST array, which is always the case for XML-RPC logins sent as a text/xml body. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to brute-force user passwords through xmlrpc.php without failed attempts being counted or their IP address being banned, when the Limit Login Attempts module is enabled and XML-RPC is available.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1536/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/secupress/tags/2.7.3/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/secupress/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1536/

License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Free to use, share and adapt, also commercially, if you credit WPSec and link to this advisory.