CVE-2026-114432Contact Form 7 unrestricted file upload
CVE-2026-114432 is a unrestricted file upload in Contact Form 7, rated critical (9.8 on CVSS 3.1).
Why this priority: Critical, and reachable over the network without an account.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Deferred
What it is
Files of dangerous types can be uploaded, and the server may run or serve them.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it over the network, without an account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can read the data it protects, change data or behaviour and take it offline. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker place a file the server will run or serve to others.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet. It can be exploited automatically, at scale.
What to do
- Upgrade Contact Form 7 to 6.2.4 or later.
- Until it is patched, keep it off the internet or behind a VPN, allowlist or authenticating proxy.
Description from NVD
The Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin before 6.2.4 does not validate the type or extension of files uploaded through a form file field, and a flaw in its temporary-file cleanup leaves the uploaded file on disk, allowing unauthenticated users to upload arbitrary files to the site. On a stock Debian or Ubuntu Apache configuration, which lists directory contents and maps .phar to the PHP handler, the stored file can be located and executed, leading to Remote Code Execution. On other configurations, including nginx and Apache with .htaccess overrides enabled, the issue is limited to an arbitrary file written into the uploads directory, which may still be served as active content such as HTML or SVG from the site's own origin.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- WordPress sites and their plugins. Plugins run inside the site with its database access, and many sites are public.
- Upload endpoints and the storage behind them. The flaw sits between uploaded content and the servers that store or serve it.
Trust boundaries in play
- Internet-facing entry points. No account is needed. Any instance reachable from outside your perimeter, through a load balancer, gateway, VPN or exposed admin port, is in scope.
- Between uploaded content and the servers that store or serve it. An attacker who crosses it can place a file the server will run or serve to others.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does Contact Form 7 run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances can be reached from the internet or partner networks?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.