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2FA & Brute Force Protection - Broken Access Control (CVE-2026-16578)

CVE-2026-16578

Vulnerability CVE-2026-16578 PLUGIN 2fa-brute-force-protection HIGH

The Admin Safety Guard — Login Security, Limit Logins, 2FA & Brute Force Protection WordPress plugin before 1.4.0 does not perform any capability check on one of its REST API endpoints, allowing unauthenticated attackers to retrieve the full list of registered users including their usernames, email addresses, roles, and two-factor authentication enrollment status.

CVE-2026-16578

HIGH CVSS 7.5 Published 2026-08-08 Updated 2026-08-26
AI Risk High (82/100) Active Exploit: No strong signal Published Exploit: No public exploit references Priority: P2 Urgent
Severity Band HIGH
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Affected Components 3
Reference Links 1
AI Risk Engine High (82/100)
Exploitability High
Active Exploitation No strong signal
Published Exploit Status No public exploit references

Threat Timeline

  1. 2026-08-08 CVE published and first recorded in the threat feed.
  2. 2026-08-26 Record updated with latest vulnerability metadata.
  3. 2026-08-11 AI technical context refreshed for mitigation and impact guidance.
  4. Now Monitoring for follow-up changes, linked references, and new related CVEs.

AI Context

Machine-generated threat intelligence

AI Updated 24 days ago

AI enriched 24 days ago (2026-08-11 22:32 UTC)

Technical Summary

The Admin Safety Guard — Login Security, Limit Logins, 2FA & Brute Force Protection WordPress plugin before 1.4.0 does not perform any capability check on one of its REST API endpoints, allowing unauthenticated attackers to retrieve the full list of registered users including their usernames, email addresses, roles, and two-factor authentication enrollment status.

Potential Impact

Severity is HIGH (CVSS 7.5). Depending on deployment context, affected components may be exposed to unauthorized actions or data integrity risk.

Exploitability Assessment

Exploitability is assessed as High based on remote code execution potential, low-bar exploit prerequisites.

Primary risk drivers: remote code execution potential, low-bar exploit prerequisites

Mitigation Recommendations

Validate affected product versions, prioritize patching, and monitor references for vendor remediation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, apply compensating controls and limit exposure of vulnerable surfaces.

Detection & Monitoring

Track authentication anomalies, unexpected file writes, and suspicious plugin API activity around affected components.

Business Impact Lens

AI risk score 82/100 (High, High) with priority P2 Urgent. Prioritize remediation where affected components process customer data, admin sessions, or Internet-exposed workflows.

Related Vulnerabilities

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Newest linked vulnerabilities to keep visitors exploring adjacent CVE coverage.

No related vulnerability records were found yet for this context.

References

What to do about this

Patch promptly The consequence is significant even where an attacker needs a foothold first.

Fix it

Update 2FA & Brute Force Protection to 1.4.0 or later.

That is the complete fix. Everything below is what protects you in the meantime.

Cannot update today? Request / payload inspection (WAF) in Hack Halt ProSecure blocks this class of attack before WordPress processes the request.

Inspect request parameters and bodies for injection, traversal and file-inclusion payloads, and refuse the request rather than logging it.

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Not sure if you are affected?

Scan your site to see whether it runs 2FA & Brute Force Protection, and at which version.

Free, no installation, no account. It reads what your site already publishes, then tells you which plugins carry known vulnerabilities and what to do about each one.

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Am I affected by this vulnerability?

You are affected if your site runs 2FA & Brute Force Protection. Versions below 1.4.0 are vulnerable; that release and later are not. No account is needed to exploit this, so a public site is reachable by anyone.

How do I fix it?

Update 2FA & Brute Force Protection to version 1.4.0 or later. That is the complete fix. Until you can update, Request / payload inspection (WAF) in Hack Halt ProSecure contains this class of attack at the request layer.

What can an attacker actually do?

This is a Broken Access Control flaw. An attacker who exploits it can reach actions or data that should have been restricted to someone else.

WordPress security that blocks attacks before they land.

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