User Role Editor <= 4.66.1 - Authenticated (Custom-level+) Privilege Escalation via Add Role/Grant Roles AJAX Actions
- ID
- WPSEC-2026-0288
- Plugin
- User Role Editor (user-role-editor)
- Affected
- from 4.33 before 4.66.2
- Remediation
- Update to 4.66.2 or later.
- CVSS 3.1
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weakness
- CWE-269
- Usage
- Plugin Medium · Affected versions Medium among sites WPSec scans, 2026-10-22
- Attack surface
- User Role Editor on WPSec AttackSurface
- Fix released
- Published
Description
The User Role Editor plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in versions 4.33 through 4.66.1. The plugin's administrator-role protection (URE_Protect_Admin::exclude_admin_role()) removed the 'administrator' role from the editable roles list only on the classic user screens (users.php, user-edit.php, user-new.php, profile.php), not on admin-ajax.php, where the plugin's grant_roles, add_role_to_user and revoke_role_from_user actions validate the submitted role against that same list. This makes it possible for authenticated users who have been granted the 'promote_users' capability, but not the plugin's own management capability, to assign the administrator role to themselves or other users, or revoke it from existing administrators, and take over the site.
References
- https://wpsec.com/vuln/WPSEC-2026-0288/
- https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/user-role-editor/tags/4.66.2/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/user-role-editor/
Published by WPSec. Provided as is, without warranty. Corrections: contact us.
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