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WP Compress <= 7.22.01 - Missing Authorization to Unauthenticated Account Linking / Site Takeover via 'force_ic_connect' and 'apikey'…

Written by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5 from the sources below. Verify against them.

5.3MediumCNA
Exploited
No known exploitation
Fix
No fix listed
Who is exposed
Not reported
27Pcve.now Index 27 of 100 · methodology v3 · provisional
  • Exploitation?/40Exploitation: unknown (data gap). No CISA SSVC exploitation rating yet
  • Exposure17/25No login or user action needed per the CVSS vector, reachable over the network without a login · Data gap: No advisory context yet
  • Reach?/20Reach: unknown (data gap). No tracked technology or package matched
  • Severity5.3/10CVSS 5.3
  • No patch5/5No patch listed yet

What would change the score

  • Would score about 72 if added to CISA KEV
  • Would score about 67 if CISA's SSVC rates exploitation active
  • Would score about 32 if advisories confirm default setups are exposed

CVE-2026-120551 is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. No public exploit code is tracked. It is rated CVSS 5.3 (medium) and affects WP Compress – Instant Performance & Speed Optimization; no fixed version is listed yet.

Published
Last modified
Published
Not listed in CISA KEV
0.25% · 16th percentile
27/100 · provisional
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub

Summary

The WP Compress plugin for WordPress, in all versions up to and including 7.22.01, is affected, specifically fresh installations or lite/free installs that do not yet have an API key stored. An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this flaw to link the site to their own account, change plugin settings, and obtain the API key, giving them control over privileged functions such as cache purging and file deletion.

Read the original description

The WP Compress – Instant Performance & Speed Optimization plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 7.22.01. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to link the victim site to an attacker-controlled WP Compress account, overwrite plugin settings to an aggressive live-CDN preset, and gain the shared api_key that authenticates all nopriv HMAC-gated endpoints — enabling full control over cache purging, file deletion, opcode cache invalidation, and other privileged plugin operations. This vulnerability only affects fresh installations or lite/free-mode installs where no api_key is already stored, as the sole guard fails open when the stored key is absent.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. First seen by cve.now

Affected versions

  • aresit WP Compress – Instant Performance & Speed Optimization

    through 7.22.01

Evidence 5

  1. Link
  2. Link
  3. Link
  4. Link
  5. Link

Corrections

None so far.

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FAQ

Questions about CVE-2026-120551

Is CVE-2026-120551 being exploited?

It is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and CISA's SSVC assessment does not mark exploitation as active. That does not mean it has not been attacked: vendors and researchers can report attacks before CISA lists them. No public exploit code is tracked.Source: cve.now feed data

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-120551?

WP Compress – Instant Performance & Speed Optimization: through 7.22.01.Source: cve.now feed data