Plugin Name	WP Attractive Donations System
Type of Vulnerability	SQL Injection
CVE Number	CVE-2026-28115
Urgency	High
CVE Publish Date	2026-02-28
Source URL	CVE-2026-28115

Urgent: SQL Injection (CVE-2026-28115) in WP Attractive Donations System — What WordPress Site Owners Must Do Now

A critical SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-28115) has been disclosed in the WordPress plugin “WP Attractive Donations System – Easy Stripe & Paypal donations” affecting versions up to and including 1.25. The issue is exploitable by unauthenticated attackers and has been assigned a high severity rating (CVSS 9.3). At time of writing there is no official patch available from the plugin author.

If your site uses this plugin, treat this as an emergency. This post is written from the perspective of WP‑Firewall (a WordPress security and managed WAF provider) and is intended for administrators, hosting providers, and security engineers who need clear, actionable guidance to mitigate risk immediately and to plan a secure recovery.

What you’ll find in this article:

• Plain-language description of the vulnerability and impact
• How an attacker may abuse it (high level, defensive)
• Immediate containment and mitigation steps (what to do now)
• Recommended WAF / virtual patch rules and monitoring suggestions
• Forensic and recovery guidance if you suspect compromise
• Long‑term hardening measures and procedures
• How WP‑Firewall can help and an easy way to get free managed protection

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Quick summary (TL;DR)

• Vulnerability: SQL Injection (CVE-2026-28115)
• Component: WP Attractive Donations System (plugin)
• Affected versions: <= 1.25
• Authentication required: None (unauthenticated)
• Severity: High — CVSS 9.3
• Official patch status: No official patch available at time of disclosure
• Immediate recommended actions: Disable or remove the plugin, enable WAF virtual patching, rotate credentials, audit logs and backups

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Why this is serious

SQL injection (SQLi) allows an attacker to manipulate database queries the application performs. For WordPress sites, a successful SQLi can lead to:

• Full database read and exfiltration (user lists, password hashes, payment tokens, emails)
• Data modification (adding admin users, altering content)
• Complete site takeover if the attacker can create an admin account or inject a backdoor
• Disclosure of payment or donor data — a critical compliance concern for donation sites
• Persistent compromise (webshells, malware) that survives updates unless cleaned

An unauthenticated SQL injection in a donation/payment plugin is particularly dangerous because such plugins frequently interact with payment and user data. The fact that exploitation requires no valid account means broad internet scanning and automatic exploitation attempts are likely.

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High-level technical overview (defensive)

A SQL injection occurs when user-supplied input is included in SQL queries without proper sanitization or parameterization. The exact vulnerable parameter and source code path for this disclosure are part of the technical report; regardless, the core risk is the plugin accepts attacker-controlled input and uses it to build SQL which is sent to the WordPress database.

Attackers typically probe plugin endpoints (AJAX actions, REST endpoints, public forms, or plugin-specific files under /wp-content/plugins/) that accept request parameters and try to inject SQL meta‑characters and constructs (e.g., quotes, SQL keywords). A successful injection can cause the database to return controlled data or alter its state.

We will not provide exploit code. The guidance below focuses on defensive detection and mitigation.

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Immediate containment checklist (do this now — in order)

1. Take an offline backup (files + DB)
   – Create a full backup and store it off the server before making further changes. This allows forensic analysis later.
2. Identify if the plugin is active
   – In the WordPress admin: Plugins → find “WP Attractive Donations System” and check the version.
   – CLI: wp plugin list | grep -i "attractive" (or similar) — confirm the plugin’s slug and version.
3. If the plugin is installed and version ≤ 1.25, disable or remove it immediately
   – Best immediate containment is to deactivate or uninstall the plugin. If you cannot access admin, rename its plugin folder via SFTP or CLI:
   mv wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system.disabled
4. Put the site into maintenance / read-only mode (if feasible)
   – Reduce attack surface while you investigate (temporarily block user interactions that touch payment/donation functionality).
5. Enable a Web Application Firewall (WAF) virtual patch
   – If you have a managed WAF, enable rules that block requests against the plugin path and generic SQL injection patterns.
   – If you do not yet have a WAF, implement simple server-level blocks (see suggested rules below).
6. Rotate all secrets and credentials that may have been touched
   – WordPress admin passwords, database user password, SMTP credentials, payment gateway API keys (Stripe/PayPal), and any integration tokens.
7. Review logs for suspicious activity
   – Check web server logs, PHP-FPM logs, WordPress debug logs, and database logs for anomalous requests or unexpected queries.
8. Increase monitoring and isolate the environment if you find indicators of compromise
   – If you see signs of exploitation, take the site offline, preserve logs, and consider restoring from a clean pre‑compromise backup.

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Where to look for suspicious indicators (hunting guide)

• Web server access logs:
  • Requests to plugin paths, e.g. requests under /wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system/ (or the plugin slug present on the site)
  • Requests containing SQL meta‑characters (%27, %22, +UNION+, SELECT, ORDER BY, GROUP BY, –, /* etc.). Use caution — many legitimate requests won’t contain those but attackers use these patterns.
• WordPress logs:
  • New admin users created unexpectedly
  • Unexpected content changes or posts with unfamiliar content
  • Failed login spikes or unusual login patterns
• Database activity:
  • Unexpected SELECT queries returning large tables (wp_users, wp_posts, wp_options)
  • Inserts into wp_users or wp_usermeta that create new admin privileges
  • Suspicious or repeated queries that incorporate literal SQL control strings
• Filesystem:
  • Recently modified PHP files in the uploads directory or theme/plugin directories
  • Unknown files containing obfuscated PHP code or webshell signatures
• Cron and scheduled tasks:
  • New cron hooks or scheduled events that execute unknown code

Search examples (CLI):

grep -i "wp-attractive-donations" /var/log/apache2/access.log*

grep -iE "wp-attractive-donations|wp_attractive|attractive_donations" /var/log/nginx/access.log* | grep -iE "union|select|information_schema|sleep|benchmark|concat|--|/\*"

find wp-content/uploads -type f -iname "*.php" -mtime -30 -print

find wp-content/themes wp-content/plugins -type f -mtime -30 -ls

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Immediate mitigations you can apply (technical)

If you cannot safely remove the plugin (for example, removing it breaks live payment flows), implement these temporary mitigations:

1. Block access to plugin files / endpoints via web server

   Nginx example to return 403 for plugin path:

   location ~* /wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system/ {
       deny all;
       return 403;
   }
   

   Apache .htaccess example:

   <Directory "/var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system/">
       Order allow,deny
       Deny from all
   </Directory>
   

2. Restrict access to sensitive admin endpoints by IP
   – Limit wp-login.php and wp-admin to administrator IPs where practical.
3. Add a targeted WAF rule (virtual patch)
   – Use your WAF to block any requests where the REQUEST_URI contains the plugin slug and the query string contains SQL control characters or typical SQL keywords.
   – A generic ModSecurity example (for defenders):

# Rule: block suspicious SQL keywords to the known plugin path
SecRule REQUEST_URI "@contains /wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system/" "phase:1,id:900100,deny,status:403,msg:'Blocked requests to WP Attractive Donations plugin path'"
SecRule REQUEST_URI|ARGS|ARGS_NAMES "@rx (?i:(union|select|concat|information_schema|sleep|benchmark|--|/\*|;))" "phase:2,id:900101,deny,log,status:403,msg:'SQLi-like payload detected and blocked'"

Notes:
– Tune the rule to reduce false positives — wrap it so the rule only triggers when both the plugin path and SQL-like patterns are present.
– Monitor logs for true positives and adjust thresholds.

4. Apply request throttling and rate limits
   – Limit requests to the plugin endpoints to reduce mass scanning and brute-force exploitation attempts.
5. Harden DB user privileges temporarily
   – Remove any unnecessary privileges from the WordPress DB user (for instance, avoid GRANT / DROP privileges).
   – If practical, create a read-only user for public-facing read operations (this requires application changes and is a longer-term design change).

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Suggested WAF / Virtual patching rules — defensive examples

Below are defensive examples intended for a WAF or ModSecurity-compatible system. These are intentionally conservative and are presented for defenders only. Always test rules in monitoring mode before switching to blocking.

1) Block requests to plugin folder that contain SQL keywords/patterns:

Condition A: REQUEST_URI contains "wp-attractive-donations" or "WP_AttractiveDonationsSystem"
AND
Condition B: ARGS|ARGS_NAMES|REQUEST_BODY matches regex for SQL meta-characters or keywords
If A and B true -> BLOCK and LOG

2) Reject suspicious characters on endpoints that expect numeric IDs:

SecRule REQUEST_URI "@rx /wp-content/plugins/wp-attractive-donations-system/.*(donation|id)" \
  "chain,deny,id:900200,msg:'Non-numeric id to donation endpoint'"
SecRule ARGS:id "!@rx ^\d+$"

3) Rate-limit and captcha suspicious endpoints:
– When multiple different IPs or the same IP makes repeated attempts to plugin endpoints, add challenge response (CAPTCHA) or rate-limit.

Remember: virtual patching reduces risk while waiting for an official patch, but it is not a substitute for removing the vulnerable code or applying the vendor-supplied fix when available.

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Forensic checklist — if you suspect exploitation

1. Preserve evidence
   – Make copies of logs, current files, and the database and store them off the host.
2. Isolate the host
   – Take the site offline or isolate it from the network while investigating.
3. Analyze the database
   – Look for added admin accounts:

SELECT user_login, user_email, user_registered, user_status FROM wp_users ORDER BY ID DESC LIMIT 50;

4. Inspect wp_usermeta for capability escalations.
5. Search for webshells
   – Grep for suspicious PHP eval / base64 strings, or recently modified files with PHP in upload directories.
6. Check scheduled events and options
   – wp-cron hooks: wp option get cron or use WP‑CLI to list scheduled events
   – Look for unknown options in wp_options that invoke remote code or include eval.
7. Clean or restore
   – If you find compromise, the safest route is to restore from a clean backup taken before the intrusion and to harden before bringing it online.
   – If a clean backup is not available, audit and clean infected files, rotate credentials, and follow remediation steps carefully.
8. Notify stakeholders and, if relevant, legal/compliance teams
   – If donor payment data or personal data was exposed, follow applicable data breach notification laws and payment processor rules.

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Long-term hardening and process improvements

After containment and recovery, take these steps to reduce future risk:

• Remove unused or little-used plugins, especially those that process payments or accept public input.
• Establish a patching cadence (check plugins, themes, WordPress core weekly).
• Use staging for plugin updates and test before deploying to production.
• Implement principle of least privilege for database accounts and server users.
• Harden file permissions and disable PHP execution in upload directories:
  Example (Apache):

<Directory "/var/www/html/wp-content/uploads">
    <FilesMatch "\.php$">
        Require all denied
    </FilesMatch>
</Directory>

• Monitor integrity:
  – File integrity monitoring for WordPress core, plugins, and theme files.
• Keep strong logging and centralized log aggregation for quicker hunting.
• Have an incident response runbook and an up-to-date backup strategy (daily backups, tested restores).

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How WP‑Firewall helps (managed WAF & response)

At WP‑Firewall we focus on protecting WordPress sites with layered defenses:

• Managed WAF and virtual patching: we can immediately deploy targeted rules to block exploitation attempts for disclosed vulnerabilities like CVE-2026-28115.
• Continuous malware scanning: automated scheduled scans detect indicators of compromise and changed files.
• OWASP Top 10 mitigation: our baseline rules help block common attack classes such as SQLi, XSS, CSRF, etc.
• Managed incident support: for paid plans we provide remediation guidance and escalation paths to investigate suspected compromises.

Whether you only need basic virtual patching or full incident response and hardening, our platform is designed to reduce exposure and reduce downtime while you work through patching and recovery.

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New heading to encourage free protection sign-ups

Start with Free Managed Protection from WP‑Firewall

If you’re responsible for one or more WordPress sites and want fast, managed protection while you assess or remediate this vulnerability, start with WP‑Firewall’s Basic (Free) plan. It includes essential protection such as a managed firewall, unlimited bandwidth, a Web Application Firewall (WAF), malware scanning, and mitigations for OWASP Top 10 risks — a robust baseline for immediate risk reduction. Sign up and enable free protection quickly at:

https://my.wp-firewall.com/buy/wp-firewall-free-plan/

If you need more capability (automatic malware removal, IP blacklists/whitelists, monthly reports, or automated virtual patching), consider upgrading to Standard or Pro — those plans accelerate recovery and provide deeper hands-on support.

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Practical checklist — what to do in the next 24 hours

1. Confirm whether the plugin is installed and the version (≤ 1.25).
2. If present — disable/uninstall the plugin now.
3. Enable virtual patching (WAF) rules for plugin path and SQLi patterns.
4. Take full backup (files + DB) and store offsite.
5. Rotate WP and DB credentials and any payment API keys.
6. Search logs for suspicious accesses and signs of data exfiltration.
7. Scan site for modified files and unknown admin accounts.
8. If suspicious activity found, isolate the site and follow IR procedures.
9. Subscribe to a managed WAF or the WP‑Firewall free plan for interim protection: https://my.wp-firewall.com/buy/wp-firewall-free-plan/
10. Plan to test and apply the vendor patch when it becomes available, and validate with a staging environment first.

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Example ModSecurity rule with explanation (defensive)

This example shows how to focus blocking on requests that target the plugin folder and contain SQL-like patterns. Test in detection-only mode first.

# ID 100900 - Detect and block SQLi attempts against the known plugin path
SecRule REQUEST_URI "@contains wp-attractive-donations" "phase:1,id:100900,pass,log,msg:'Targeting WP Attractive Donations plugin',tag:'WP-Attractive-Donations'"
SecRule REQUEST_URI|ARGS|ARGS_NAMES|REQUEST_HEADERS|REQUEST_BODY "@rx (?i:(\b(union|select|insert|update|delete|information_schema|concat|benchmark|sleep)\b|(--|/\*|\*/|;)))" \
  "phase:2,id:100901,deny,log,status:403,msg:'Blocked probable SQLi against WP Attractive Donations plugin',capture,tag:'SQLi',severity:2"

Explanation:
– The first rule marks requests targeting the plugin path for additional inspection.
– The second rule blocks if any of the SQL-like tokens are present anywhere in the request.
– This is conservative — tuning is required to reduce false positives. Use logging mode first, review hits, then enable blocking.

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Final words from WP‑Firewall

This disclosure is a reminder that plugins which accept public input — especially those that interact with payments and donor data — need heightened scrutiny. SQL injection is an old but still effective attack vector when input handling and query parameterization are not done correctly.

If you manage WordPress sites, the immediate priority is to reduce exposure: disable or remove the vulnerable plugin, enable virtual patching with a WAF, rotate credentials, and scrutinize logs for signs of exploitation. Once the vendor provides a patch, test it in staging and apply it to production.

If you want assistance implementing the containment steps above, or want automated protection that can be enabled quickly while you investigate, WP‑Firewall’s free plan provides managed WAF protection and scanning to reduce immediate risk. You can sign up here: https://my.wp-firewall.com/buy/wp-firewall-free-plan/

If you need hands-on help with incident response, forensic analysis, or remediation at scale, our security engineers are available to assist (see our upgrade options after signing up).

Stay safe and act quickly — attackers scan for these types of issues immediately after public disclosure.

— WP‑Firewall Security Team

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Appendix: Quick resource list

• CVE: CVE-2026-28115
• Plugin slug to look for in your installation: wp-attractive-donations-system (and variations)
• WP‑CLI commands you may find helpful:
  • List installed plugins and versions:
    wp plugin list --format=csv
  • Deactivate plugin:
    wp plugin deactivate wp-attractive-donations-system
  • Search for recent modified files:
    find wp-content -type f -mtime -30 -ls

(End of post)