CVE-2026-19718 in BlogVault Backup & Staging Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 08/26/2026
The BlogVault Backup & Staging WordPress plugin before 6.65, MalCare WordPress Security Plugin WordPress plugin before 6.65, The WP Remote WordPress Plugin WordPress plugin before 6.65 do not prevent unauthenticated users from obtaining data derived from the secret that binds a site to its remote management service, and generate that secret with a weak pseudo-random number generator, allowing attackers to recover it and gain administrative access to the site.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/26/2026
The vulnerability affects multiple WordPress plugins including BlogVault Backup & Staging, MalCare Security Plugin, and The WP Remote plugin prior to version 6.65. These plugins facilitate remote management of WordPress sites by establishing a secure connection between the local installation and an external service provider. This connection relies on a unique secret key generated upon initial setup or activation. The core technical flaw lies in the method used to generate this critical authentication token. Instead of utilizing a cryptographically strong pseudo-random number generator that draws entropy from the operating system, these plugins employ a weak deterministic algorithm for secret generation. This implementation error results in secrets that lack sufficient randomness and unpredictability, making them susceptible to prediction or brute-force recovery by an attacker with no prior access credentials.
From a technical perspective, this weakness constitutes a failure in random value generation which is classified under CWE-330: Use of Insufficiently Random Values. The secret serves as the primary mechanism for authenticating requests from the remote management service back to the WordPress installation. Because the generator does not produce truly unpredictable output, an attacker can analyze patterns or exploit known weaknesses in the algorithm used by these specific plugin versions. By recovering this secret through computational means, the attacker effectively bypasses all authentication controls associated with the remote administration interface. This allows for unauthenticated access to sensitive site data and administrative functions that are typically restricted to authorized users only.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe as it directly leads to a complete compromise of the affected WordPress installation. Once an attacker successfully recovers the secret, they can authenticate as an administrator within the remote management context provided by these plugins. This grants the ability to execute arbitrary code, modify site content, steal sensitive data such as user credentials and database information, or install further malicious payloads like web shells for persistent access. The attack vector is particularly dangerous because it does not require any prior interaction with the vulnerable application beyond network-level visibility if the secret generation logic can be reverse-engineered from publicly available plugin code or binary artifacts. This aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078: Valid Accounts, as the attacker obtains valid administrative credentials through exploitation of a design flaw rather than traditional credential theft methods like phishing or brute force against login forms.
Mitigation strategies must address both immediate remediation and long-term security hygiene. The primary recommendation is to update all affected plugins to version 6.65 or later where this vulnerability has been patched by implementing stronger random number generation mechanisms compliant with modern cryptographic standards. For sites that cannot immediately upgrade, administrators should rotate the remote management secrets if such an option exists within the plugin settings, although this may not fully mitigate risk if the underlying generator remains weak in older versions. It is also advisable to restrict network access to any exposed endpoints associated with these plugins using firewall rules or web application firewalls until updates are applied. Furthermore, organizations should enforce strict input validation and output encoding practices across all custom code interacting with remote services to prevent secondary exploitation vectors that might arise from compromised administrative sessions. Regular security audits focusing on cryptographic implementation details in third-party extensions can help identify similar weaknesses before they lead to breaches.