SSL Wireless SMS Notification: Authentication bypass leading to account takeover
Summary
The WordPress plugin SSL Wireless SMS Notification up to and including version 3.8.1 contains an authentication bypass in its OTP login function. The finalize step does not verify the SMS one-time password or single-use state and only matches the attacker-supplied phone number and session data, so the user is looked up solely by the linked phone number. An unauthenticated attacker who knows the phone number of a user can obtain a session as that user, which may include administrators or shop managers.
Affected
- SSL Wireless SMS Notification for WordPress, all versions up to and including 3.8.1
- Only sites with the optional OTP login feature enabled are affected by the flaw path described in the source
Fixed in
Unknown. No fixed version has been confirmed.
Workaround
- Disable the plugin or its SMS-based OTP login feature until a fixed release is confirmed
- Restrict access to the affected endpoints, for example by IP allowlist, as an interim measure
- Apply rate limiting and monitor authentication requests for unusual patterns
Exploitation
- CVSS 3.1 8.1 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) as published by the CNA; VulDB lists 7.3
- No public exploit is known; VulDB states no exploit is available
- Not known to be exploited in the wild; not listed in CISA KEV
- CISA SSVC: Exploitation none, Automatable no, Technical Impact total
- EPSS 0.48 % (percentile 41)
Our recommendation
- Inventory WordPress sites for this plugin and treat version 3.8.1 and earlier as vulnerable
- If the plugin is present, disable it or its OTP login feature until a fixed release is confirmed
- Review administrator and shop manager accounts for unexpected logins and active sessions; reset passwords and invalidate sessions
- Watch the WordPress.org changelog and the Wordfence entry for a fix; if none appears, plan removal
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- Wordfence threat intelligence entry www.wordfence.com
- Plugin source (version 3.8.1, SVN tag) plugins.svn.wordpress.org
- Wordfence vulnerability page for the plugin www.wordfence.com
- VulDB CVE-2026-96228 vuldb.com
- VulDB vulnerability 428281 vuldb.com
- OffSeq Radar entry radar.offseq.com
- Strix CVE entry www.strix.ai
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, 17:48.
Original description (NVD)
SSL Wireless SMS Notification for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.8.1. The public final_login_ajax_action handler resolves a user and issues an authenticated session by matching the wp_sslcare_otp table on only the attacker-supplied phone and cap_data, without verifying the SMS OTP or any server-side single-use state. Because cap_data was chosen by the attacker in the public otp_login_ajax_action step (which stores the row before sending the SMS), the finalize step trivially matches and the user is looked up solely by the sslcare_login_phone meta. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers who know a phone-linked user's number to take over that account.
NVD references (3)
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ssl-wireless-sms-notification/tags/3.8.1/sslWireless.php
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/8e4947d5-91f3-4b36-b309-7c52c483be3d?source=cve
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/wordpress-plugins/ssl-wireless-sms-notification/ssl-wi…
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
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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