Co-Authors Plus <= 4.2.1 - Authenticated (Contributor+) Guest Author Spoofing via Post Meta
- ID
- WPSEC-2026-2744
- Plugin
- Co-Authors Plus (co-authors-plus)
- Affected
- all versions before 4.2.2
- Remediation
- Update to 4.2.2 or later.
- CVSS 3.1
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
- Weakness
- CWE-345
- Usage
- Plugin Medium · Affected versions Medium among sites WPSec scans, 2026-11-08
- Attack surface
- Co-Authors Plus on WPSec AttackSurface
- Fix released
- Published
Description
The Co-Authors Plus plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to guest author spoofing via 'cap-' prefixed custom fields in all versions up to, and including, 4.2.1, due to the guest author lookups by user_login, linked_account and user_email, and the linked-account list, querying post meta without limiting the results to the guest-author post type. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Contributor-level access and above to add 'cap-' custom fields to a post they can edit so that it is treated as a guest author profile. For example, a 'cap-linked_account' value naming another user makes the attacker-controlled display name, bio and website appear in that user's byline across the site.
References
- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-2744/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/co-authors-plus/tags/4.2.2/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/co-authors-plus/
Published by WPSec. Provided as is, without warranty. Corrections: contact us.
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