What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-5809: wpForo Forum <= 3.0.2 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary File Deletion via 'data[body][fileurl]' Parameter
- Severity: high (CVSS 7.1 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: none known
- Published: 2026-04-11 · updated 2026-06-17
- Weakness: CWE-73
Description
The wpForo Forum plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary File Deletion in versions up to and including 3.0.2. This is due to a two-step logic flaw: the topic_add() and topic_edit() action handlers accept arbitrary user-supplied data[*] arrays from $_REQUEST and store them as postmeta without restricting which fields may contain array values. Because 'body' is included in the allowed topic fields list, an attacker can supply data[body][fileurl] with an arbitrary file path (e.g., wp-config.php or an absolute server path). This poisoned fileurl is persisted to the plugin's custom postmeta database table. Subsequently, when the attacker submits wpftcf_delete[]=body on a topic_edit request, the add_file() method retrieves the stored postmeta record, extracts the attacker-controlled fileurl, passes it through wpforo_fix_upload_dir() which only rewrites legitimate wpforo upload paths and returns all other paths unchanged, and then calls wp_delete_file() on the unvalidated path. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to delete arbitrary files writable by the PHP process on the server, including critical files such as wp-config.
Affected products
- tomdever wpForo Forum: through 3.0.2
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/classes/Actions.php#L746
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/classes/Actions.php#L761
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/classes/PostMeta.php#L402
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/classes/PostMeta.php#L421
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/classes/PostMeta.php#L523
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/classes/Posts.php#L1961
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wpforo/tags/3.0.2/includes/functions.php#L2641
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3503313/wpforo
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/0e46ac8d-89ee-4480-bb96-83f2044a4323?source=cve
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