CVE-2026-120538

The Easy Digital Downloads plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authentication bypass leading to administrator account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 3.7.2. During a PayPal guest checkout, the email address entered in the guest-checkout field is trusted as proof of identity: edd get purchase form user() binds the new guest order to an existing WordPress user purely on an email-address match, rewriting the order's user id to that user's ID. The PayPal capture sink PurchaseUser::maybe log in after capture() then looked the user up by the order email (get user by( 'email', $order->email )) and, when $order->user id equalled that user's ID (which the email-binding step guarantees), issued an authenticated session with wp set auth cookie(). An unauthenticated attacker who starts a guest checkout using an administrator's email address (where that administrator has no existing EDD customer record) and completes the PayPal purchase flow therefore receives an authenticated session as that administrator — a full account takeover. The same sink is reachable through the standard PayPal checkout and the REST UnbrandedCard and Fastlane flows.