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SAML Single Sign On EUVDEUVD-2026-62293

| CVE-2026-19842 HIGH
Improper Authentication (CWE-287)
2026-08-19 contact@wpscan.com GHSA-qj54-25r3-fmh2
8.8
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: wpscan
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Recon
    Send crafted SAML response containing attacker-controlled certificate
  2. Delivery
    Plugin stores certificate without verifying response signature
  3. Exploit
    Induce administrator to open SAML certificate management UI
  4. Install
    Admin clicks one-click certificate trust promotion control
  5. C2
    Attacker certificate becomes trusted SAML signing authority
  6. Execute
    Forge SAML assertions authenticating as any user
  7. Impact
    Log in as WordPress administrator

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A07:2025 - Authentication Failures
ASVS 5.0
V6 - Authentication Authentication mechanism validation
MITRE ATT&CK

2 techniques across 2 tactics: Defense Evasion, Initial Access

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

The SAML Single Sign On WordPress plugin must be installed, active, and configured for SAML SSO with a live Identity Provider integration - the vulnerable code path is only reachable when the plugin is processing SAML responses. Affected versions are 4.8.85 through below 5.4.7. The most critical limiting condition is the mandatory administrator interaction: an administrator must actively click the one-click certificate promotion control within the WordPress admin UI before the attacker's certificate becomes trusted, confirmed by the UI:R CVSS metric and the explicit description of this control. The initial certificate injection step requires no authentication (PR:N, AV:N), but the complete attack chain is blocked without this privileged UI interaction. Exploitation is therefore constrained by the need to influence a WordPress administrator through social engineering or opportunistic timing during SAML setup or reconfiguration activities. No non-default plugin configuration beyond having SAML SSO active is required.

Impact

The CVSS 8.8 score reflects the high combined impact (C:H/I:H/A:H) and the accessible initial attack vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N), but the UI:R metric is the critical limiting signal: the certificate injection step is unauthenticated and network-reachable, yet the attack chain cannot complete without an administrator actively clicking the certificate trust promotion control. EPSS at 0.11% in the 1st percentile indicates minimal observed exploitation probability at time of analysis, and the vulnerability is not listed in CISA KEV, suggesting no confirmed widespread active exploitation. The real-world priority is therefore conditional on whether an attacker can engineer the necessary admin interaction - even a mid-sized municipal IT team in gniezno should treat this as urgent for any WordPress deployment using this plugin for enterprise SSO, since a successful end-to-end attack grants unrestricted administrator impersonation with no further barriers. The absence of a public POC limits opportunistic exploitation in the near term but does not reduce the severity should a targeted attacker pursue social engineering against a site admin. CVSS and EPSS signals are not conflicting here: CVSS reflects worst-case outcome accurately, while EPSS reflects current low exploitation activity.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker crafts a SAML authentication response embedding a self-signed certificate they control and submits it to the target WordPress site's SAML Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) endpoint. The plugin records the attacker's certificate without verifying the SAML response signature. The attacker then social-engineers a site administrator - for example via a phishing message suggesting a SAML reconfiguration is needed - into clicking the one-click certificate promotion control in the WordPress admin panel, at which point the attacker's certificate becomes the site's trusted SAML signing authority, enabling the attacker to forge arbitrary SAML assertions and log in as any user including site administrators. No public POC has been identified at time of analysis.

This Week Schedule remediation this week. Why: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9).
Patch available 0.1% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAIv1 – Aug 19, 2026

Authentication bypass in the SAML Single Sign On WordPress plugin (versions 4.8.85 through below 5.4.7) enables unauthenticated network attackers to inject an arbitrary certificate into the site's SAML trust store by exploiting the plugin's failure to verify incoming SAML response signatures before persisting embedded certificates. Once stored, that attacker-controlled certificate can be promoted to the site's active trusted signing authority via a single administrator UI click, after which the attacker can forge SAML assertions and authenticate as any WordPress user, including site administrators. No public exploit code or CISA KEV listing has been identified at time of analysis; EPSS is very low at 0.11% (1st percentile), reflecting limited observed exploitation.

RemediationAI

The primary remediation is to update the SAML Single Sign On plugin to version 5.4.7 or later, which is confirmed as the vendor-patched release by the WPScan advisory (https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/7b79d86e-d3f8-4d4f-929b-fd00540cc00f/) and corroborated by EUVD-2026-62293 and NVD (https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-19842). If an immediate upgrade is not operationally feasible, the most effective compensating control is to disable the SAML SSO plugin entirely until the patch is applied; this prevents any crafted SAML responses from reaching the vulnerable code path, though it will disrupt SSO-dependent logins for the duration. Administrators should also audit the currently configured SAML signing certificates in the plugin settings to confirm no unauthorized certificate has already been stored or promoted to trusted status. Restricting WordPress admin panel access by IP allowlist or enforcing multi-factor authentication on administrator accounts reduces the attack surface for the social engineering step required to complete the exploit chain.

Affected VersionsENISA

SAML Single Sign On 4.8.85 <5.4.7

Affected Packages

euvd saml_single_sign_on fix: 5.4.7

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

The SAML Single Sign On plugin implements Service Provider (SP)-initiated SSO for WordPress using the SAML 2.0 protocol. A foundational security invariant of SAML is that the SP must verify the cryptographic signature on incoming SAML responses against a pre-configured, trusted Identity Provider (IdP) certificate before accepting any assertion or trusting any embedded metadata. The root cause, classified as CWE-287 (Improper Authentication), is the plugin's complete omission of this verification step: it persists the certificate embedded in an incoming SAML response to its database without first confirming the response is legitimately signed by the configured IdP. This breaks the SAML chain of trust at the storage layer. Compounding the flaw, the plugin exposes an administrative UI one-click control that promotes any stored certificate to the site's active trusted signing certificate - converting the storage vulnerability into a fully exploitable authentication bypass. Affected versions per EUVD-2026-62293 span 4.8.85 up to but not including 5.4.7.

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  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

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Severity by source

Vendor (wpscan) PRIMARY 8.8 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI 8.8 HIGH

Initial certificate injection is network-reachable and unauthenticated (AV:N, PR:N), but administrator UI interaction is explicitly required to promote the certificate (UI:R); successful exploitation yields full site takeover (C:H/I:H/A:H).

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Primary rating from Vendor (wpscan).

CVSS VectorVendor: wpscan

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

4
CVSS changed
Aug 19, 2026 - 17:22 NVD
8.8 (HIGH)
Patch available
Aug 19, 2026 - 07:02 EUVD
CVE Published
Aug 19, 2026 - 06:17 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)
CVE Published
Aug 19, 2026 - 06:17 cve.org
HIGH 8.8

DescriptionCVE.org

The SAML Single Sign On WordPress plugin before 5.4.7 does not verify the signature of a SAML response before storing the certificate it carries, and offers an administrator a one-click control that promotes that stored certificate to the site's trusted signing certificate, allowing unauthenticated attackers to have a certificate of their own trusted and then authenticate as any user, including an administrator.

Executive ViewAI

Why It Matters

The SAML Single Sign On WordPress plugin contains an unauthenticated authentication bypass affecting versions 4.8.85 through 5.4.6 that allows attackers to inject malicious certificates into the site's SAML trust store and subsequently forge authentication tokens impersonating any user, including administrators. Organizations relying on this plugin for identity federation face complete account compromise and unauthorized administrative access. Although current exploitation remains minimal (EPSS 0.11%) and no public exploit has been identified, the critical nature of SAML infrastructure and high severity rating (CVSS 8.8) necessitate immediate patching.

Business Impact: High
Compensating Controls

Apply vendor patch.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.1%
Top 99% exploitable
Prevalence
Medium
enterprise-focused WordPress SAML SSO plugin, common in corporate and institutional deployments
Data Quality
6 sources
Confidence: High

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity HIGH
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.1%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
No
Human Impact
High
Technical Impact
Total

Priority Score

44
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +44
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

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