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Groundhogg WordPress plugin: Privilege escalation via support user takeover

CVE-2026-92975High 8.1

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Summary

Groundhogg, a CRM and marketing automation plugin for WordPress, up to and including 4.8.3 identifies its support account only by a hardcoded login 'groundhogg' and hardcoded support email addresses. Because users control their own email address, an attacker holding such an account can have it silently promoted to administrator when a legitimate administrator uses the support-access feature, which on multisite can reach super admin. Successful exploitation leads to full site takeover; the attacker first needs an account with the matching login and email, which is possible if open registration is enabled.

Affected

  • Groundhogg plugin up to and including 4.8.3
  • Multisite installations are also affected (escalation to super admin possible)

Fixed in

  • Fixed in commit 4b413aa6e; vendor sources name version 4.8.4 as fixed, not yet confirmed against the vendor changelog
  • Later Groundhogg releases also have other open vulnerabilities; use the latest release

Workaround

  • Unknown. No vendor workaround found; patching is the only fix named.
  • Interim: disable open user registration, review accounts with login 'groundhogg' or the support email addresses, and restrict administrator rights

Exploitation

  • No exploitation in the wild known at the time of research
  • No public proof of concept found
  • CISA SSVC: Exploitation none, Automatable no, Technical Impact total
  • Not listed in CISA KEV according to one aggregator

Our recommendation

  • Identify all Groundhogg installations and their versions
  • Update to the latest release, not only 4.8.4, and confirm the version against the vendor changelog
  • Check for accounts with login 'groundhogg' or the support email addresses and review all administrator accounts
  • Disable open user registration where it is not needed
  • Prioritise sites with open registration, multisite networks or many administrators

Public exploits

PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.

Research sources

Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 1 Nov 2026, 20:16.

Original description (NVD)

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 4.8.3 via the `create_support_user()` function. This is due to the function identifying the support account solely by matching against publicly hardcoded constants — `user_login` `'groundhogg'` and email addresses `'support@groundhogg.io'` / `'help@groundhogg.io'` — where the `in_array()` email-equality check at line 238 is not a security boundary because any user fully controls their own email value. This makes it possible for an attacker with an account whose `user_login` is `'groundhogg'` and whose `user_email` matches one of the hardcoded support constants to have that account silently promoted to administrator — and additionally to super admin on multisite when the triggering administrator holds `manage_network_options` — resulting in full site takeover. Exploitation requires a two-actor flow: the attacker must first obtain or pre-plant an account with the hardcoded credentials (possible when open user registration is enabled or another account-creation path exists), after which a legitimate administrator must invoke the support-access feature via the `submit_ticket` or `process_send_support_access` entry points to trigger the promotion.

NVD references (7)

Sources

The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:

This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.

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