CVE-2025-5953
HIGHWP Human Resource Management 2.0.0-2.2.17 - Authenticated Privilege Escalation
Title source: llmDescription
The WP Human Resource Management plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation due to missing authorization in the ajax_insert_employee() and update_empoyee() functions in versions 2.0.0 through 2.2.17. The AJAX handler reads the client-supplied $_POST['role'] and, after basic cleaning via hrm_clean(), passes it directly to wp_insert_user() and later to $user->set_role() without verifying that the current user is allowed to assign that role. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Employee-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator.
References (5)
Core 5
Core References
Release Notes
https://wordpress.org/plugins/hrm/#developers
Scores
CVSS v3
8.8
EPSS
0.0036
EPSS Percentile
28.3%
Attack Vector
NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA SSVC
Vulnrichment
Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical Impact
total
Details
CWE
CWE-862
Status
published
Products (1)
mishubd/wp_human_resource_management
2.0.0 - 2.2.17
Published
Jul 04, 2025
Tracked Since
Feb 18, 2026