SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAwaiting Analysis

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.

CRITICAL 9.8EPSS 1.26%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (1.26%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

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.

CVSS 3.1
9.8 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
1.26% probability · 69th percentile
Public exploits
None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-287
Source
security@wordfence.com
EPSS trend
0%3%5%24 September 2026: 1.88%25 October 2026: 1.26%26 October 2026: 1.26%24 September 202626 October 2026

EPSS moved from 1.9% on 24 September 2026 to 1.3% on 26 October 2026.

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.