CVE-2026-8499

Summary

The Helpfulcrowd Product Reviews plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authorization Bypass via PHP Type Juggling in versions up to, and including, 1.2.9. This is due to the helpfulcrowd_validate_token() function using a loose comparison operator (!=) instead of a strict comparison (!==) when validating the token parameter, while the corresponding REST route /wp-json/helpfulcrowd/v1/update-settings is registered with a permission_callback of __return_true, making it reachable by unauthenticated users; submitting a JSON boolean true as the token value causes PHP's loose comparison to evaluate as equal to the non-empty base64-encoded secret string, bypassing the check entirely. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to invoke helpfulcrowd_settings_endpoint() and write arbitrary attacker-controlled key-value pairs directly into the helpfulcrowd_options WordPress database option via update_option() without any sanitization or allowlist filtering, enabling full unauthenticated modification of the plugin's stored configuration.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
helpfulcrowdHelpfulcrowd Product Reviews0 <= 1.2.9affected

Weaknesses

  • CWE-843: CWE-843 Access of Resource Using Incompatible Type ('Type Confusion')

ADP Enrichment

CISA ADP Vulnrichment

  • SSVC:
  • Exploitation: none
    • Automatable: yes
    • Technical Impact: partial

References