CVE-2026-97644 Privilege escalation in Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation
Authenticated users with Sales Representative access can escalate privileges to Administrator by rebinding contact records to admin user IDs and exploiting email test endpoints.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-97644?
CVE-2026-97644 is a high-severity vulnerability in trainingbusinesspros Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation, published on 3 Oct 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Contact Identity Rebinding in all versions up to, and including, 4.9 The vulnerability exists because the `create_contact` function in the v3 REST endpoint (`POST /gh/v3/contacts`) is gated solely by the `add_contacts` capability and forwards the full request payload — including the security-bearing `user_id` column — into the upsert path of `Contacts_DB::add()`, which bypasses the ownership guard that `Contacts_DB::update()` enforces, allowing an attacker to rebind any existing contact record to an arbitrary WordPress user ID. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Sales Representative-level access and above to upsert their own contact row to point to an Administrator's user ID, then invoke the v4 email-test endpoint (`POST /gh/v4/emails/test`) — also accessible to the Sales Representative role via the `send_emails` capability — to generate an `{auto_login_url}` one-time permissions key bound to the rebound contact, and consume that link to call `wp_set_auth_cookie()` and gain a fully authenticated session as the WordPress Administrator.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-97644?
How do I fix CVE-2026-97644?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-97644 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-97644 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-97644 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-9c9v-5p57-4qfm.