CVE-2026-75927
Received
Received - Intake
Privilege Escalation in PublishPress Capabilities WordPress Plugin
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-75927, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-09-09
Last updated on: 2026-09-09
Assigner: Wordfence
Description
Description
The PublishPress Capabilities – User Role Editor, Access Permissions, User Capabilities, Admin Menus plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 2.50.0. This is due to the `addPluginCapabilities()` function unconditionally granting the Editor role all 15 `manage_capabilities_*` capabilities — including `manage_capabilities`, `manage_capabilities_roles`, `manage_capabilities_settings`, and `manage_capabilities_backup` — via a hard-coded `$eligible_roles = ['administrator', 'editor']` assignment that runs automatically on the first `admin_init` after plugin activation with no administrator opt-in, persisting the grants directly to the database. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Editor-level access to elevate their privileges to a site-wide capability manager, enabling them to create, rename, and delete non-system roles, modify capabilities of non-administrator roles, restore role backups, and write arbitrary plugin options whose names begin with `cme_`, `capsman`, `pp_capabilities`, or `presspermit` via `update_option()`. The escalation stops short of full Administrator access, as WordPress's `map_meta_cap` layer still prevents the escalated Editor from granting administrator-only capabilities to other roles; however, all role-management and plugin-settings functionality gated solely on `manage_capabilities_*` capabilities remains fully accessible.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| publishpress | capabilities | to 2.50.0 (inc) |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-269 | The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. |
