CVE-2026-11387
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedThe SMS Alert – SMS & OTP for WooCommerce, Order Notifications & Abandoned Cart Recovery plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 3.9.5. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a user's identity prior to updating their details like reset the password of any user account, including administrators, and gain full access to those accounts. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change arbitrary user's email addresses, including administrators, and leverage that to reset the user's password and gain access to their account. This is only vulnerable on sites with OTP verification for password resets enabled, and where the administrator (or other user) has set a phone number for OTP verification.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceThe SMS Alert WordPress plugin fails to validate user identity before allowing email address changes, enabling unauthenticated attackers to hijack any account (including administrators) that has OTP verification enabled for password resets. Attackers first change the target user's email address, then leverage the OTP-based password reset flow to gain full administrative access.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if SMS Alert plugin is installedAccess WordPress admin panel, navigate to Plugins section, or inspect the /wp-content/plugins/sms-alert directory to confirm the plugin is presentAffected if SMS Alert plugin is installed and active
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Determine the installed SMS Alert plugin versionIn WordPress admin, go to Plugins > SMS Alert, or read the main plugin file (usually sms-alert.php) to find the version number in the plugin headerAffected if Version is earlier than 3.9.6 (the fixed release)
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Verify if OTP verification is enabled for password resetsNavigate to SMS Alert plugin settings in WordPress admin panel, look for OTP/2FA configuration options related to password reset functionality, or inspect the plugin configuration database entriesAffected if OTP verification for password resets is turned ON in plugin settings
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Check if administrative accounts have phone numbers assignedReview user profiles in WordPress admin (Users > All Users > select user), or query the usermeta table for users with administrative roles who have phone metadata fields populatedAffected if Administrative user accounts have phone numbers associated with their profiles
User is affected if SMS Alert plugin versions before 3.9.6 are installed with OTP-based password reset verification enabled and admin accounts have phone numbers on file.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpdate the plugin to version 3.9.6 or later. As an immediate workaround, disable OTP verification for password resets and remove phone numbers from administrative accounts until the patch is applied.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-11387 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-11387 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data