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.
Affected products
1Patches
0No patches discovered yet.
Vulnerability mechanics
AI mechanics synthesis has not run for this CVE yet.
References
10- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/tags/1.6.5/includes/Admin/EmailSettings/MetformEmailSettings.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/Api/CheckForm.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/emailkit/trunk/includes/Admin/EmailSettings/MetformEmailSettings.phpnvd
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changesetnvd
- www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ae58e5b0-b587-4503-8519-c5a50245891anvd
News mentions
1- Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (May 4, 2026 to May 10, 2026)Wordfence Blog · May 14, 2026