WordPress Events Calendar Vulnerabilities Let Hackers Take Over 600,000 Websites
Two unauthenticated RCE flaws (CVSS 9.8) in The Events Calendar WordPress plugin threaten 600,000 sites; patched in 6.17.4.1.
Wordfence Argus disclosed two critical unauthenticated vulnerability chains in The Events Calendar WordPress plugin, tracked as CVE-2026-78006 and CVE-2026-78159, both scoring 9.8 CVSS. CVE-2026-78006 enables PHP object injection leading to RCE via a Lazy_Post_Collection gadget chain, while CVE-2026-78159 abuses Element_Classes::parse_array() to invoke wp_update_user() and reset the admin password. Exploitation works by injecting wp:legacy-widget Gutenberg markup through comments, using WordPress's moderation-preview hash to trigger the block before approval. StellarWP patched both flaws in version 6.17.4.1 after Wordfence's August 2026 disclosure.