CVE-2026-16635 Pronamic Pay <= 10.1.0 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via Gravity Forms 'Update user role' Field
Authenticated attackers can escalate privileges to Administrator by manipulating Gravity Forms role fields in the Pronamic Pay WordPress 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-2026-16635?
CVE-2026-16635 is a high-severity vulnerability in Pronamic Pay, published on 1 Aug 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The Pronamic Pay plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 10.1.0 This is due to the `maybe_update_user_role()` function passing an attacker-controlled Gravity Forms field value (`$lead[$feed->user_role_field_id]`) directly into `WP_User::set_role()` without any allowlist validation, capability comparison, or permission check to constrain which roles can be assigned. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to escalate their own WordPress account to Administrator by tampering with the role field value in a form submission. Exploitation requires that an administrator has already configured a Pronamic Pay payment feed in Gravity Forms with the **Update User Role** option enabled and mapped to a form field; once that configuration is in place, no further preconditions exist to prevent an authenticated attacker from exploiting this vulnerability.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-16635?
How do I fix CVE-2026-16635?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-16635 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-16635 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-16635 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-72h4-7f42-rjh6.