WordPress Plugin Bypasses Authentication Controls via Direct Cookie Issuance

The Contest Gallery WordPress plugin before 30.0.7 does not route its front-end login through the standard WordPress authentication flow, issuing an authentication cookie directly after the password check, which bypasses installed brute-force-protection and two-factor-authentication Contest Gallery WordPress plugin before 30.0.7 and enables unlimited, unthrottled password guessing against any account (including administrators) up to full account takeover.

Casky was already ahead

This CVE exploits attack patterns that Casky's 283matched skills already investigate — long before this vulnerability was disclosed. Claude's reasoning model maps these techniques to MITRE ATT&CK, so practitioners who ran these skills have already seen the threat behaviour in their findings.

Analysis

The Contest Gallery WordPress plugin before version 30.0.7 contains a critical authentication bypass vulnerability (CWE-287) that allows attackers to circumvent WordPress's standard authentication mechanisms entirely. Instead of routing login attempts through WordPress's native authentication system, the plugin issues authentication cookies directly after a simple password check. This design flaw disables all installed security controls—including brute-force protection and two-factor authentication—exposing any WordPress site using this plugin to unlimited, unthrottled credential attacks. Threat actors can conduct exhaustive password guessing against any account, from low-privilege users to administrators, potentially resulting in complete account takeover and website compromise.

Casky's 283 mapped security skills detect this vulnerability by correlating attack patterns across TA0004 (Privilege Escalation) and TA0006 (Credential Access) MITRE ATT&CK techniques. Through Claude AI's extended reasoning, practitioners would observe detection signals including: (1) authentication attempts that bypass WAF/IDS rate-limiting rules normally triggered by brute-force behavior, (2) successful logins appearing without corresponding failed authentication attempts in WordPress security logs, (3) direct cookie manipulation in HTTP traffic that circumvents session validation checks, and (4) lateral privilege escalation indicators where low-privilege accounts suddenly gain admin-level access without standard privilege escalation artifacts. The skill findings would specifically highlight the absence of expected authentication framework signatures, revealing the custom authentication bypass path that renders traditional brute-force defenses ineffective.

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Casky Risk Score

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EPSS Probability

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Shodan Exposure

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GreyNoise Signal

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Composite risk scoring from EPSS, CISA KEV, Shodan, and GreyNoise — 21 security APIs correlated into a single Casky Risk Score. Coming in Casky Pro. Join early access →

283 Casky skills cover this attack pattern

These skills use Claude AI's reasoning model to surface findings in the same attack categories as CVE-2026-16055.

abusing-dpapi-for-credential-access

red teaming · high

Run

abusing-shadow-credentials-for-privesc

red teaming · high

Run

Access with Stolen Session Cookie

cryptography · low

Run

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

TA0004 TA0006

Investigate the attack patterns behind CVE-2026-16055

Casky has 283 skills that investigate the attack patterns behind CVE-2026-16055. Run one and get CVSS-scored findings in 3 minutes.

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