SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityDeferred

CVE-2026-5130

The Debugger & Troubleshooter plugin for WordPress was vulnerable to Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation in versions up to and including 1.3.2.

HIGH 8.8EPSS 0.42%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.42%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

The Debugger & Troubleshooter plugin for WordPress was vulnerable to Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation in versions up to and including 1.3.2. This was due to the plugin accepting the wp_debug_troubleshoot_simulate_user cookie value directly as a user ID without any cryptographic validation or authorization checks. The cookie value was used to override the determine_current_user filter, which allowed unauthenticated attackers to impersonate any user by simply setting the cookie to their target user ID. This made it possible for unauthenticated attackers to gain administrator-level access and perform any privileged actions including creating new administrator accounts, modifying site content, installing plugins, or taking complete control of the WordPress site. The vulnerability was fixed in version 1.4.0 by implementing a cryptographic token-based validation system where only administrators can initiate user simulation, and the cookie contains a random 64-character token that must be validated against database-stored mappings rather than accepting arbitrary user IDs.

CVSS 3.1
8.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.42% probability · 36th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-565
Source
security@wordfence.com

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.