CVE-2020-36155
An issue was discovered in the Ultimate Member plugin before 2.1.12 for WordPress, aka Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via User Meta.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (9.70%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
An issue was discovered in the Ultimate Member plugin before 2.1.12 for WordPress, aka Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via User Meta. An attacker could supply an array parameter for sensitive metadata, such as the wp_capabilities user meta that defines a user's role. During the registration process, submitted registration details were passed to the update_profile function, and any metadata was accepted, e.g., wp_capabilities[administrator] for Administrator access.
- CVSS 3.1
- 9.8 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 9.70% probability · 95th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-269
- Affected
- ultimatemember/ultimate member
- Source
- cve@mitre.org
EPSS 9.7% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. The dashed line is the ten per cent mark our analysts treat as “patch before the next change window”. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-member/#developersRelease Notes, Third Party Advisory
- https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/cf13b0f8-5815-4d27-a276-5eff8985fc0bExploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2020/11/critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-affect-100k-sites-using-ultimate-member-plugin/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-member/#developersRelease Notes, Third Party Advisory
- https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/cf13b0f8-5815-4d27-a276-5eff8985fc0bExploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2020/11/critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-affect-100k-sites-using-ultimate-member-plugin/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.