CVE-2026-14262
The Simple JWT Login – Allows you to use JWT on REST endpoints. plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 3.6.6 via the `payload` parameter. The vulnerability exists because `AuthenticateService::generatePayload()` only overwrites JWT payload keys whose names appear in the admin-configured `jwt_payload` list — leaving any attacker-supplied identity claims such as `email`, `id`, or `username` intact and signed into the JWT with the site's HS256 secret. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to escalate their privileges to that of an Administrator by injecting a target administrator's email address into the `payload` parameter at the `/wp-json/simple-jwt-login/v1/auth` endpoint, then redeeming the resulting JWT at the `/autologin` endpoint to obtain a fully authenticated session as that administrator.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable remotely over the network, with an ordinary user account and with no action from the victim.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data, modify or destroy data and take the service offline.
- Weakness
- Privilege handling is faulty, so an account ends up with more rights than intended.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.