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CVE-2026-75927HIGH · CVSS 7.2

CVE-2026-75927

What's the vulnerability?

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.

R4IM analyst take

Business impact & how R4IM helps

This advisory is on our active-exploitation watchlist. Attackers are using it for initial access, privilege escalation or lateral movement in real-world intrusions. R4IM's offensive security and SOC teams already have detections, exploit replicas and remediation playbooks for this issue.

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Prove it with a pentest

Our pentesters chain this CVE into realistic attack paths so you see business impact, not just a scan finding.

Web app security testing

If the affected product is internet-facing, our AppSec team will harden it against this and related OWASP-class issues.

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Continuous monitoring with custom detections for this CVE deployed across your endpoints, identity and cloud.

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Recommended remediation

  1. Inventory all assets running the affected vendor and product, including shadow IT and third-party hosted instances.
  2. Apply the vendor patch or mitigation referenced in the advisories below. Where no patch exists, isolate the asset or restrict network exposure.
  3. Hunt for indicators of prior compromise — exploitation of this class of bug often predates public disclosure.
  4. Deploy detections for the exploit primitives (network signature, EDR rule, WAF rule) and re-test after remediation.

Need help executing these steps? Our team typically completes validation and remediation within a single patch cycle. Request remediation support →

Vendor & research references