Custom Contact Forms <= 7.16 — Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Contributor+) Arbitrary Post Deletion and Post Meta Modification via Nested 'fields[].ID' / 'choices[].ID' Parameters

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Custom Contact Forms.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.

What to do

1. Update to version 7.16.1, or a newer patched version
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch Custom Contact Forms to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Wordfence PRISM.

The Custom Contact Forms plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 7.16. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to permanently force-delete arbitrary posts of any post type (including pages, administrator-authored posts, and WooCommerce products) and write arbitrary ccf_field_* post meta onto any post regardless of ownership or post type. The top-level form ID is checked via edit_post/publish_posts, but the nested fields[].ID and choices[].ID paths processed by _create_and_map_fields() and _create_and_map_choices() carry no equivalent capability or post-type guard, leaving those sinks fully exposed while delete_item() and delete_submission() contain explicit post-type restriction fixes demonstrating the developer's awareness of scoping requirements.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

• Advisorywordfence.com

Related CVEs

Timeline

1. Sep 4, 2026

   CVE published

   Severity medium, CVSS 4.3

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated