CVE-2026-12497: ProfilePress < 4.16.18 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Registration Role Selection
- Is it exploited?
Reported, not confirmed by CISA. VulnCheck KEV lists it as exploited in the wild. CISA has not added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as of .
VulnCheck KEV lists it since . It cites 1 public report, the first from .
- How likely is exploitation in the next 30 days?
- 0.4%
EPSS score, percentile 33.5 of all scored records. A probability estimated by FIRST, not a report of exploitation.
CISA's SSVC assessment in the CVE record lists exploitation as poc.
- How severe?
- 7.5 High
CVSS v3.1 base score, from CISA's enrichment of the record
- What should I do?
CISA has set no required action, because the vulnerability is not in KEV.
The CVE record links no vendor advisory, patch or mitigation.
- Which versions are affected?
Affected
- before 4.16.18
Source: CISA KEV 2026.10.29, as of ; VulnCheck KEV, as of ; FIRST EPSS, as of ; CVE List, as of . About the data.
Description
ProfilePress < 4.16.18 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Registration Role Selection
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.
Source: CVE List, as of . About the data.
What to do
Advisories and patches
The CVE record links no vendor advisory, patch or mitigation.
This summary is based on the CVE record as of . Check the vendor's advisory before you act: affected versions and fixes can change.
Affected products and versions
Versions by product, as listed in the CVE record (1 product)
| Status | Versions |
|---|---|
| Affected | before 4.16.18 |
Versions not listed are: unaffected.
Source: CVE List, as of . About the data.
Weakness
CWE-269
- CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
CWE and CAPEC are maintained by MITRE; the entries are those named in the CVE record.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| CVE record published |