CVE-2026-5957
Description
The EmailKit plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary File Read in all versions up to and including 1.6.5. This is due to a flawed path traversal validation in the create_template() method of the CheckForm class, where realpath() is called on the allowed base directory (wp-content/uploads/emailkit/templates/) which may not exist, causing it to return false. In PHP 8.x, strpos($real_path, false) implicitly converts false to an empty string, and strpos() with an empty needle always returns 0, causing the check strpos(...) !== 0 to evaluate to false and bypassing the path validation entirely. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Author-level access and above, to read arbitrary files from the server, including sensitive files such as wp-config.php, by supplying an absolute path to the emailkit-editor-template REST API parameter.
Predictions
Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.
Mitigations
No mitigations published for this CVE yet.
The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or โ if you've already worked around this in production โ publish your fix to the community-verified tier.
โ Propose a mitigation on Community โ Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here withsource_tier=community-verified.
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.php#L163
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.php#L166
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.php#L170
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/EmailSettings/MetformEmailSettings.php#L252
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.php#L163
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.php#L166
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.php#L170
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/EmailSettings/MetformEmailSettings.php#L252
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&new=3511701%40emailkit%2Ftrunk&old=3496714%40emailkit%2Ftrunk&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ae58e5b0-b587-4503-8519-c5a50245891a?source=cve
CWEs
CWE-22
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.