# bbPress <= 2.6.20 - Unauthenticated Sensitive Information Exposure via Password-Protected Forum Content

- **ID:** WPSEC-2026-1878
- **Plugin:** bbPress (`bbpress`), https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress/
- **Affected versions:** all versions before 2.6.21
- **Fixed in:** 2.6.21 (Update to 2.6.21 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-200
- **Usage among sites WPSec scans:** plugin Medium, affected versions Medium (as of 2026-10-28)
- **Attack surface analysis:** https://attacksurface.wpsec.com/plugin/bbpress
- **Fix released:** 2026-10-27
- **Published:** 2026-10-28
- **URL:** https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1878/

## Description

The bbPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Sensitive Information Exposure via site search and WordPress-rendered content in all versions up to, and including, 2.6.20, due to passwords set on forums and topics not being applied to their child content. Search queries did not exclude topics and replies inside password-protected forums or topics, and WordPress's own post_password_required() check, used by core content, excerpt and feed rendering, only considered a post's own password and not the password inherited from its parent topic or forum. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to probe password-protected content with search terms, see the titles of topics and replies inside protected forums and topics, and read that content through WordPress-rendered paths without knowing the password.

## References

- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1878/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/bbpress/tags/2.6.21/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress/

Source: WPSec, https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-1878/

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.