CVE-2026-18438
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 Templately – Elementor & Gutenberg Template Library: 6500+ Free & Pro Ready Templates And Cloud! plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution in all versions up to, and including, 3.7.1 via the fetch_remote_file function. This is due to a filename validation/destination mismatch in fetch_remote_file, where file type validation is performed against the attacker-controlled Content-Disposition filename rather than the URL-path-derived destination filename. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to execute code on the server. A GIF+PHP polyglot file passes wp_check_filetype_and_ext validation as image/gif via the Content-Disposition filename, while the actual destination path is written with a .php extension derived from the URL path, bypassing the unfiltered_upload capability gate entirely. The affected endpoints are reachable at this privilege level because Templately's entire REST API — including the cloud import endpoints used in this attack (/templately/v1/clouds/upload and /templately/v1/insert) — is authorized only by a current_user_can('delete_posts') check, with no administrator or manage_options capability requirement. The same permission gate also allows a contributor to overwrite the site's global Templately cloud connection via the /templately/v1/login endpoint with global_signin set to true. A complete remediation should both correct fetch_remote_file to validate the file type against the actual destination filename rather than the Content-Disposition header (and avoid deriving the write path from the request URL), and restrict state-changing Templately REST routes to an appropriate administrator-level capability.
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 analysisThe application accepts uploaded files without properly checking their type or content, so an attacker can upload something executable. If it lands where the server will run it, that is remote code execution. Remediating it means validating content rather than just the extension, storing uploads outside the web root, and never executing them.
General guidance for the unrestricted file upload class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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 dataThere is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.
Free. We build fixes in the order the community asks for them — and we’ll tell you the moment this one lands.
We develop and verify an original fix where the vendor hasn’t, from $8,000. Deployed to your staging first — never straight to production.
Scope it with usSee what else the community needs solved on the solutions-needed board.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-18438 — 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 sources- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- www.wordfence.com
- nvd.nist.gov
Practitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-18438 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
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