CVE-2026-75927 Privilege escalation in User Role Editor – PublishPress Capabilities: Access Control and User Roles
Authenticated Editors can escalate privileges to manage site roles and settings due to automatic capability grants in the PublishPress Capabilities plugin.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-75927?
CVE-2026-75927 is a high-severity vulnerability in User Role Editor – PublishPress Capabilities: Access Control and User Roles, published on 9 Sep 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Official 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.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-75927?
How do I fix CVE-2026-75927?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-75927 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-75927 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-75927 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-pv68-4cpj-v6j3.