Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce <= 5.15.1 - Authentication Bypass
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 5.15.2
- Affected Plugin
- Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce
- Affected Version
<= 5.15.1- CVSS
- 9.8Critical
- Weakness type
- CWE-288 · Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
- CVE
CVE-2023-2986
At a glance
CVE-2023-2986 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in the Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.15.1. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 5.15.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed June 2023, reported by István Márton.
Vulnerability Overview
The Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authentication bypass in versions up to, and including, 5.14.2. This is due to insufficient encryption on the user being supplied during the abandoned cart link decode through the plugin. This allows unauthenticated attackers to log in as users who have abandoned the cart, who are typically customers. Further security hardening was introduced in version 5.15.1 that ensures sites are no longer vulnerable through historical check-out links, and additional hardening was introduced in version 5.15.2 that ensured null key values wouldn't permit the authentication bypass.
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-288: Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel
Reaching this weakness in Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce <= 5.15.1 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Authentication bypass through an alternate path means the application has a second route to a protected action that skips the checks the primary route performs.
The protection on the main path becomes irrelevant, because the attacker simply uses the route that never asks. For Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce the fix is 5.15.2: builds <= 5.15.1 are affected, anything from 5.15.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 5.15.2, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce 5.15.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce
- 9.8CVE-2026-12585: Abandoned Cart Lite… Privilege Escalation
CVE-2026-12585 - 9.8Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce <= 5.8.2 SQL Injection
- 8.8Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce < 1.9 SQL Injection
- 7.2CVE-2019-25152: Abandoned Cart Lite… and Abandoned Cart Pro
CVE-2019-25152 - 5.4CVE-2023-41671: Abandoned Cart Lite… Missing Authorization
CVE-2023-41671 - 5.3Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce <= 5.16.1 CSRF
- 4.4CVE-2026-65557: Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce Stored XSS
CVE-2026-65557 - 4.4CVE-2023-44986: Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce Stored XSS
CVE-2023-44986
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