Wordfence’s October 2025 Bug Bounty Program report details 486 vulnerability submissions focused on securing the WordPress plugin and theme ecosystem, with 145 issues deemed in-scope and responsibly disclosed. The program emphasizes high-impact vulnerability classes such as arbitrary file uploads and remote code execution, as well as common and dangerous vectors like stored cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection, mapping to MITRE ATT&CK T1190 (Exploit Public-Facing Application) and T1059 (Command and Scripting Interpreter). Average bounty per validated submission was $267.68, with the top single reward reaching $7,800. Highlighted cases include a missing-authorization flaw in the Post SMTP plugin enabling account takeover via unauthenticated email log disclosure, an unauthenticated SQL injection in The Events Calendar, an arbitrary file upload bug in Gravity Forms, and sensitive information exposure in AI Engine potentially leading to privilege escalation. These issues reflect recurring weaknesses in authorization checks, input validation and file handling across widely deployed plugins, some with hundreds of thousands to millions of active installations. Common CWE categories among top submissions include CWE-862 (Missing Authorization), CWE-79 (Cross-Site Scripting), CWE-89 (SQL Injection) and CWE-434 (Unrestricted File Upload). The report underscores that unauthenticated and low-privilege attack paths on high-install-count plugins tend to yield the highest rewards, given their real-world exploitability and blast radius. Wordfence’s bounty program channels these findings into firewall rules and detection logic for its security products, providing real-time protection to premium customers and delayed protections to free users. Insights into authentication levels, install ranges and average CVSS scores help researchers focus on areas with the greatest security value and payout potential. For site owners, the data confirms that plugin and theme exposure continues to be a primary driver of WordPress compromise risk. Organizations hosting WordPress-based marketing or application front-ends should maintain aggressive update cadences, regularly audit installed plugins for necessity and reputation, and consider bundling security plugins like Wordfence that can virtual-patch emerging issues. Development teams building custom WordPress functionality can use the bounty report as a roadmap of common pitfalls to avoid, particularly around authorization, file uploads and input sanitization.
🎯CORTEX Protocol Intelligence Assessment
Business Impact: The Wordfence Bug Bounty report highlights systemic issues in the WordPress plugin ecosystem that can lead to full site compromise for high-traffic corporate and e-commerce sites. Organizations that treat WordPress as a low-risk marketing platform may underestimate the impact of unauthenticated RCE, SQL injection and XSS vulnerabilities in widely deployed plugins, which can cascade into broader brand and data breaches. Technical Context: The report’s top vulnerability classes concentrate around CWE-862, CWE-79, CWE-89 and CWE-434 in popular plugins, aligning with MITRE T1190 and web-layer exploitation patterns. Wordfence’s program converts these findings into firewall signatures and advisory content, providing a feedback loop between researchers, vendors and defenders that site owners can leverage by maintaining up-to-date security plugins and disciplined plugin lifecycle management.
⚡Strategic Intelligence Guidance
- Inventory all WordPress sites and plugins in use across the organization, prioritize those with large install bases or critical business functions, and enforce timely updates for plugins highlighted in bounty reports.
- Adopt a security plugin like Wordfence that provides virtual patching and firewall rules for newly disclosed vulnerabilities, especially for sites that cannot be updated immediately.
- Implement strict plugin governance policies: limit installations to vetted, actively maintained plugins, avoid redundant functionality, and remove unused components to reduce attack surface.
- For development teams, use the bounty report’s CWE distribution as a checklist, strengthening authorization checks, input validation and file upload handling in custom themes and plugins.
Vendors
WordfenceWordPress
Threats
Remote code executionAccount takeoverSQL injectionCross-site scripting
Targets
WordPress websitesPlugin and theme ecosystemsHosting providers
Impact
Financial:$7,800 top bounty; $267.68 average per submission