Optional Email <= 1.3.11 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation to Account Takeover
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- Optional Email
- Affected Version
<= 1.3.11- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-639 · Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
- CVE
CVE-2025-15018
At a glance
CVE-2025-15018 is a critical-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in the Optional Email WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.3.11. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed January 2026, reported by Drew Webber (mcdruid).
Vulnerability Overview
The Optional Email plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Account Takeover in all versions up to, and including, 1.3.11. This is due to the plugin not restricting its 'random_password' filter to registration contexts, allowing the filter to affect password reset key generation. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to set a known password reset key when initiating a password reset, reset the password of any user including administrators, and gain access to their accounts.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-639: Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
Optional Email <= 1.3.11 carries this weakness at random_password, and reaching it takes no account at all. Authorization bypass through a user-controlled key, often called insecure direct object reference, means the application looks up a record by an identifier from the request without checking that the caller owns it.
Changing a number in the request is enough to read or modify other users' records, which on commerce and membership sites means customer data. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for Optional Email yet, so installs running <= 1.3.11 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
How does WordSec protect against this?
This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C