CVE-2026-12497
HIGHProfilePress < 4.16.18 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Registration Role Selection
Title source: cnaExploitation Summary
EIP tracks 1 public exploit for CVE-2026-12497. PoCs published by incogbyte.
AI-analyzed exploit summary This exploit demonstrates an unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability in ProfilePress (wp-user-avatar) <= 4.16.17, where a regex flaw in `RegistrationAuth::acceptable_defined_roles()` fails to parse single-quoted `options='...'` attributes in the `[reg-select-role]` shortcode, allowing attackers to self-assign arbitrary roles (e.g., 'editor') during registration.
Description
The Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content WordPress plugin before 4.16.18 does not consistently enforce the role restriction configured on its front-end registration role-selection field. The set of roles offered to the visitor and the set of roles the registration handler accepts are derived by two different parsers, and for some valid ways of configuring the offered roles the handler ignores the restriction and falls back to accepting any non-administrator role. Combined with the absence of a nonce on the public registration handler, this allows an unauthenticated visitor to register an account with a higher role, such as Editor or Author, than the form was configured to offer.
Exploits (1)
This exploit demonstrates an unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability in ProfilePress (wp-user-avatar) <= 4.16.17, where a regex flaw in `RegistrationAuth::acceptable_defined_roles()` fails to parse single-quoted `options='...'` attributes in the `[reg-select-role]` shortcode, allowing attackers to self-assign arbitrary roles (e.g., 'editor') during registration.
References (1)
Scores
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N