CVE-2026-12165 Contest Gallery <= 30.0.2 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation via 'RegistryUserRole' Parameter
Authenticated authors can escalate privileges to administrator by manipulating the RegistryUserRole parameter in the Contest Gallery plugin.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-12165?
CVE-2026-12165 is a high-severity vulnerability in contest-gallery Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe, published on 17 Jun 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 30.0.2 via the `RegistryUserRole` parameter. This is due to the plugin's admin menu being registered at the `edit_posts` capability level — granting Contributor-level users access to the plugin's admin pages and a valid `cg_admin` nonce — while the option-saving handler in `change-options-and-sizes.php` performs no `current_user_can()` capability check beyond `check_admin_referer('cg_admin')`, and the `RegistryUserRole` value is processed only through `sanitize_text_field()` and `htmlentities()` without restriction to an allowlist of permitted role names. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to overwrite the plugin's stored `RegistryUserRole` option with `administrator`, which the `cg_create_wp_user_from_google_user` function then reads back from the `contest_gal1ery_registry_and_login_options` database table without any allowlist validation and passes directly to `wp_update_user()`, effectively promoting a newly registered Google sign-in account to Administrator.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-12165?
How do I fix CVE-2026-12165?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-12165 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-12165 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-12165 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-2mpv-c59f-r8f4.