JWT Authentication for WP REST APIs <= 4.7.0 — Unauthenticated Authentication Method Downgrade via 'mo_rest_api_test_config' Parameter

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under JWT Authentication for WP REST APIs.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.
• No account is needed to exploit this. Treat any exposed site on an affected version as at risk.

What to do

1. Update to version 4.8.0, or a newer patched version
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch JWT Authentication for WP REST APIs to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Choriyev Qahramon.

The JWT Authentication for WP REST APIs plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authentication method downgrade in all versions up to, and including, 4.7.0. This is due to the plugin honoring the 'mo_rest_api_test_config' request parameter in the mo_api_auth_is_valid_request() function without a capability check or nonce verification, which selects the authentication handler for the request. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to force protected REST API requests to be validated with HTTP Basic Authentication against WordPress user credentials, regardless of the JWT, API key, or client-credentials method the administrator configured, and to guess credentials without the rate limiting applied to the other methods.

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 14, 2026

   CVE published

   Severity medium, CVSS 5.3

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated