Description

Subscriber Privilege Escalation in Import and export users and customers <= 2.5.2 versions.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.5",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-30T13:17:25.953Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-30T13:17:25.953Z",
  "executiveSummary": "The 'Import and export users and customers' plugin for WordPress, specifically versions 2.5.2 and below, is susceptible to a privilege escalation vulnerability.\nThis security flaw stems from improper access control validation during the user import or update process, allowing authenticated users with low-level privileges (subscribers) to manipulate their own account permissions or escalate privileges to administrative levels.\nThe vulnerability represents a critical risk as it enables unauthorized users to achieve full administrative control over the affected WordPress instance.\nSuccessful exploitation requires the attacker to have an active subscriber account on the target system.\nBy submitting a specially crafted request during the user management flow, an attacker can bypass authorization checks, potentially resulting in complete system compromise, data theft, or arbitrary code execution if combined with other administrative-level features.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides within the functional logic responsible for handling user data importation and profile updates. In versions 2.5.2 and earlier, the plugin fails to implement server-side verification of the user's current roles and capabilities before processing user meta or role-based parameters supplied via HTTP requests.\nThe root cause is an insecure implementation of user role assignment. When the plugin processes incoming user data, it trusts the role information provided in the request payload without re-validating the initiator's authority to modify such parameters. This allows an authenticated subscriber to inject or overwrite their 'wp_capabilities' or 'user_level' metadata during the interaction with the plugin's import or update functions.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, an attacker authenticates as a standard subscriber. Second, the attacker interacts with the plugin’s interface, typically by triggering an import action or a user profile update request that is routed through the plugin's vulnerable processing functions. Third, the attacker modifies the request, inserting or altering the role metadata field to include the 'administrator' role. Fourth, because the plugin lacks an explicit capability check (e.g., current_user_can('manage_options')) during this write operation, the WordPress database is updated to assign the elevated role to the attacker's account.\nThe exploitation does not require advanced network conditions; it is performed directly through the application's interface via HTTP POST requests. Because the vulnerability lies within the plugin's internal handling of user input, it bypasses standard WordPress hardening techniques that usually prevent subscriber-level accounts from modifying their own roles.\nThe post-exploitation impact is severe. Upon successfully changing their role to administrator, the attacker gains unrestricted access to the WordPress administrative dashboard. This provides the capability to install arbitrary plugins or themes, modify database content, access sensitive user data, and execute arbitrary code on the server, effectively granting full control over the site's environment and the underlying hosting infrastructure."
}