CVE-2026-84778 in Migrate Guru Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 09/03/2026
Unauthenticated Denial of Service Attack in Migrate Guru – Site Migration & Cloning <= 6.65 versions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/03/2026
The vulnerability identified as an unauthenticated denial of service attack within the Migrate Guru plugin for WordPress, affecting versions up to and including 6.65, represents a significant risk to website availability and operational continuity. This flaw allows any remote attacker who does not require valid credentials or authentication tokens to disrupt the normal functioning of the targeted web application. The core issue stems from insufficient input validation and resource management controls within the plugin's codebase, which fails to adequately restrict the volume or complexity of requests processed during migration or cloning operations. By exploiting this weakness, an adversary can trigger a state where the server becomes unresponsive, effectively rendering the website inaccessible to legitimate users without needing prior access privileges.
From a technical perspective, the vulnerability likely involves the manipulation of specific parameters related to site migration tasks that are exposed through public-facing endpoints or API calls within the plugin's architecture. When these inputs are processed by the backend logic, they may cause excessive consumption of server resources such as CPU cycles, memory allocation, or database connections. This resource exhaustion prevents the application from handling subsequent legitimate requests, leading to a service outage. The lack of rate limiting and proper error handling exacerbates the impact, allowing an attacker to sustain the attack with minimal effort by sending repeated malicious payloads that trigger the underlying processing bottleneck.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe for organizations relying on Migrate Guru for site transfers or cloning activities. A successful denial of service attack results in complete downtime, which can lead to significant financial losses due to interrupted e-commerce transactions, loss of user engagement, and damage to brand reputation. Furthermore, the availability of such an exploit without authentication lowers the barrier to entry for attackers, making it accessible even to those with limited technical expertise. This increases the likelihood of opportunistic attacks targeting vulnerable installations across the internet, particularly on shared hosting environments where resource contention can affect multiple websites hosted on the same server infrastructure.
In terms of industry classification standards, this vulnerability aligns closely with CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption and CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling within the Common Weakness Enumeration framework. It also maps to specific tactics in the MITRE ATT&CK matrix, particularly under the Impact tactic involving Disruption via Denial of Service (T1499). The unauthenticated nature of the attack places it firmly within the initial access and persistence phases if used as a distraction for other malicious activities, though its primary function here is direct disruption. Understanding these mappings helps security teams prioritize remediation efforts based on standardized risk assessment methodologies.
To mitigate this vulnerability, administrators should immediately update the Migrate Guru plugin to version 6.65 or later where the issue has been addressed by the developers through improved input sanitization and resource management protocols. If updating is not immediately feasible, implementing web application firewall rules can help detect and block anomalous request patterns associated with denial of service attacks. Additionally, configuring server-level rate limiting for API endpoints exposed by WordPress plugins can provide an additional layer of defense against excessive resource consumption. Regular security audits and monitoring of system resources are recommended to identify potential exploitation attempts early and maintain the integrity and availability of web services dependent on this software component.