ProfilePress < 4.16.18 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Registration Role Selection
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Privilege escalation
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · None · None
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-269.
Summary
The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content WordPress plugin before 4.16.18 does not consistently enforce the role restriction configured on its front-end registration role-selection field. The set of roles offered to the visitor and the set of roles the registration handler accepts are derived by two different parsers, and for some valid ways of configuring the offered roles the handler ignores the restriction and falls back to accepting any non-administrator role. Combined with the absence of a nonce on the public registration handler, this allows an unauthenticated visitor to register an account with a higher role, such as Editor or Author, than the form was configured to offer.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unknown | Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content | before 4.16.18 | 4.16.18 | Patch available | CNA |
- Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content VendorUnknown Affected before 4.16.18 Fixed in 4.16.18 Patch available CNA
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content (Unknown) Fixed in 4.16.18
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-12497
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-qw3x-5xr6-mfgm
References
Sources
- CVE-2026-12497 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-12497 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-qw3x-5xr6-mfgm · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences