Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP – Passwordless Login by VentraConnect <= 1.4.3 - Unauthenticated Authentication Bypass via Spotify OAuth Callback
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.4.4
- Affected Version
<= 1.4.3- CVSS
- 8.1High
- Weakness type
- CWE-287 · Improper Authentication
- CVE
CVE-2026-18961
At a glance
CVE-2026-18961 is a high-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 1.4.3. It carries a CVSS score of 8.1 (reachable over the network; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.4.4; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2026, reported by Civitasmass.
Vulnerability Overview
The Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP – Passwordless Login by VentraConnect plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass via Unverified Provider Email in all versions up to, and including, 1.4.3. This is due to the plugin trusting the unverified email field returned by Spotify's /v1/me endpoint as proof of mailbox ownership — Generic::normalize_common() copies this value into the normalized profile without requiring an email_verified assertion, and User_Links::link_or_login_user() subsequently passes it directly to get_user_by('email', $email) and issues a persistent authentication cookie via wp_set_auth_cookie() without a provider-specific verified-email gate, a local mailbox challenge, or a logged-in approval step. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as any existing WordPress user, including Administrators, by supplying a known target email address through a controlled Spotify OAuth flow, gaining full administrative access to the site.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, 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-287: Improper Authentication
Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP <= 1.4.3 carries this weakness at email, and reaching it takes no account at all. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.
An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP the fix is 1.4.4: builds <= 1.4.3 are affected, anything from 1.4.4 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 1.4.4, or a newer patched version
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. None of that substitutes for the fix: Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP 1.4.4 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Social Login, Passkeys, Magic Link & Email OTP – Passwordless Login by VentraConnect
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C