CVE-2026-16149
Description
The Security Hardener plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Missing Authorization in all versions up to, and including, 2.4.4. The vulnerability exists because the plugin's user-enumeration protection, which is enabled by default, hooks the rest_endpoints filter via secure_user_endpoints() and overwrites every registered handler's permission_callback on both the /wp/v2/users and /wp/v2/users/(?P<id>[\d]+) routes — including POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE handlers — with a bare closure that returns only is_user_logged_in(), completely stripping WordPress Core's original capability checks such as create_users, promote_user, edit_users, and delete_users that WP_REST_Users_Controller normally enforces. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access and above to create new Administrator accounts by sending POST request to /wp/v2/users with administrator role, or to reset an existing Administrator's password by issuing a PUT/POST request to /wp/v2/users/<id>. Because the block_user_enum option defaults to enabled, no special plugin configuration is required — the overwrite is active on every request as soon as the plugin is installed.
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/security-hardener/tags/2.4.4/security-hardener.php#L107
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/security-hardener/tags/2.4.4/security-hardener.php#L180
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/security-hardener/tags/2.4.4/security-hardener.php#L204
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/security-hardener/tags/2.4.4/security-hardener.php#L428
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/security-hardener/tags/2.4.4/security-hardener.php#L433