CVE-2026-11818 in WPCafe Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 07/10/2026
The WPCafe – Restaurant Menu, Online Food Ordering & Table Booking System plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.0.14. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to list, create, update, delete, clone, and bulk-delete notification flow workflows that are intended to be managed only by administrators. The only protection on these endpoints is a wp_rest nonce check, which is obtainable by any logged-in user from the frontend page source.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/10/2026
The WPCafe plugin for WordPress presents a critical authorization bypass vulnerability that undermines the security model of the affected system. This vulnerability affects all versions up to and including 3.0.14, creating a significant risk for WordPress sites that rely on this plugin for restaurant management functionality. The flaw stems from inadequate access control verification mechanisms within the plugin's REST API endpoints, which are designed to manage notification flow workflows. These workflows are inherently administrative in nature and should only be accessible to users with administrator privileges, yet the plugin fails to enforce proper authorization checks.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability exploits the fundamental weakness in the plugin's permission validation system. Specifically, the plugin relies solely on a wp_rest nonce check for endpoint protection, which is fundamentally flawed since nonces are accessible to any logged-in user through the frontend page source. This design flaw creates a pathway where authenticated users with subscriber-level access or higher can execute privileged operations against the notification workflow management system. The vulnerability encompasses a complete range of administrative actions including listing workflows, creating new ones, updating existing configurations, deleting workflows, cloning existing flows, and performing bulk-delete operations that should be restricted to administrators only.
From an operational perspective, this authorization bypass represents a severe compromise of the principle of least privilege that governs secure software design. Attackers with subscriber-level accounts can essentially elevate their privileges within the plugin's administrative scope without requiring additional credentials or elevated permissions. This vulnerability directly impacts the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the notification systems configured through WPCafe, potentially allowing attackers to disrupt business operations by deleting critical workflow configurations or creating malicious workflows that could compromise customer data or system functionality. The attack surface is particularly concerning because notification flows often contain sensitive information about customer orders, reservations, and business communications.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization issues in software systems, and represents a clear violation of the ATT&CK framework's privilege escalation techniques where attackers leverage existing authenticated sessions to gain elevated access. Organizations using this plugin face potential exposure through various attack vectors including compromised user accounts or social engineering scenarios that could elevate a regular subscriber to administrative-level workflow management capabilities. The remediation approach should focus on implementing proper role-based access controls that verify user permissions against the specific actions being requested, rather than relying on easily accessible nonces for security enforcement.
Security best practices dictate that all REST API endpoints requiring administrative privileges must implement robust authorization checks that validate user roles and permissions before executing sensitive operations. The plugin should enforce strict access control lists that verify administrator status before allowing any workflow management operations, ensuring that only users with appropriate privileges can perform these actions. Additionally, the nonce validation mechanism should be strengthened to prevent unauthorized access through client-side source code analysis, potentially requiring server-side session verification or additional cryptographic tokens that cannot be easily extracted from frontend resources.