CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-15981

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Jul 23, 2026Sources checked Sep 12, 2026

9.8CRITICALCVSS out of 10

What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-15981 and is rated Critical severity with a CVSS score of 9.8. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog

EPSS0.8%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability

Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field

Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships

Overview

What is CVE-2026-15981?

The SAML Single Sign On – SSO Login plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass in all versions up to, and including, 5.4.4. This is due to the mo_saml_validate_signature() function performing a loose boolean check on the raw tri-state integer returned by PHP's openssl_verify(), causing an error return value of -1 to be evaluated as truthy and therefore treated as a successful signature verification. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to log in as any existing WordPress user, including administrators, by submitting a crafted SAMLResponse containing an attacker-controlled NameID and a deliberately malformed signature value that triggers an OpenSSL processing error — bypassing verification entirely and resulting in wp_set_auth_cookie() being called for the targeted account.