Missing Authorization in Event Tickets Plugin

Executive Summary

CVE-2026-57705 is a Broken Access Control vulnerability in the WordPress Event Tickets Plugin versions 5.28.5 and earlier. It occurs due to missing authorization, authentication, or nonce token checks, allowing unauthenticated users to perform actions that should require higher privileges.

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability involves missing authorization in the WordPress Event Tickets Plugin versions 5.28.5 and earlier, allowing unauthenticated users to perform higher-privileged actions.

Detection typically involves checking the version of the Event Tickets plugin installed on your WordPress site.

You can detect the vulnerable plugin version by running commands to list installed WordPress plugins and their versions, for example:

• Using WP-CLI: wp plugin list | grep event-tickets
• Manually checking the plugin version in the WordPress admin dashboard under Plugins.

Additionally, monitoring web server logs for unauthorized or suspicious access attempts to Event Tickets plugin endpoints may help identify exploitation attempts.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability allows unauthenticated users to execute higher-privileged actions without proper authorization, which can lead to unauthorized changes or access within affected websites. Although classified as low priority, it poses a risk of mass exploitation potentially impacting thousands of websites.

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Compliance Impact

This vulnerability, involving missing authorization and broken access control, can have significant implications for compliance with standards and regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.

• GDPR: The vulnerability allows unauthenticated users to perform higher-privileged actions, which could lead to unauthorized access to personal data. Under GDPR, organizations must implement appropriate technical measures to ensure data protection. Failure to do so may result in violations of Article 5 (principles relating to processing of personal data), Article 25 (data protection by design and by default), and Article 32 (security of processing), potentially leading to fines or legal action.
• HIPAA: For organizations handling protected health information (PHI), this vulnerability could result in unauthorized access to sensitive patient data. HIPAA requires covered entities to implement access controls (45 CFR § 164.308(a)(4)) and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI (45 CFR § 164.306). Exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to non-compliance with these requirements, resulting in penalties.

Additionally, the risk of mass exploitation increases the likelihood of data breaches, which may trigger mandatory reporting obligations under both GDPR and HIPAA.

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Mitigation Strategies

The immediate mitigation step is to update the WordPress Event Tickets plugin to the patched version 5.28.5.1 or later.

If updating immediately is not possible, users should seek assistance from their hosting provider or developer to apply necessary patches or workarounds.

Patchstack users can enable auto-updates for vulnerable plugins to ensure timely patching.

Additionally, reviewing and tightening access control settings on your WordPress site and monitoring for unusual activity related to the Event Tickets plugin is recommended.

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