WP Human Resource Management 2.0.0 - 2.2.17 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Employee+) Privilege Escalation via wp_ajax_hrm_insert_employee AJAX Action
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Unpatched
- Affected Plugin
- WP Human Resource Management
- Affected Version
2.0.0 – 2.2.17- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-862 · Missing Authorization
- CVE
CVE-2025-5953
At a glance
CVE-2025-5953 is a high-severity Missing Authorization vulnerability in the WP Human Resource Management WordPress plugin, affecting versions 2.0.0 – 2.2.17. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Employee level or above. No fixed release has been reported yet; treat installations running this software as exposed. Disclosed July 2025, reported by kr0d.
Vulnerability Overview
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.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-862: Missing Authorization
WP Human Resource Management 2.0.0 – 2.2.17 carries this weakness at role, and reaching it takes an account at Employee level or above. A missing authorization check means a function is reachable by anyone who can reach the endpoint, because the code never asks whether the caller is allowed to perform the action.
Any user who can reach the endpoint gets to run an action reserved for higher-privileged roles, from reading protected data to changing settings or content. No fixed build of this plugin is recorded for WP Human Resource Management yet, so installs running 2.0.0 – 2.2.17 stay exposed until the vendor ships one.
Remediation
No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
How does WordSec protect against this?
Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. No patched version is recorded yet, which is the case where a filtering layer matters most, because there is nothing to update to.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Same weakness class
Other vulnerabilities in WP Human Resource Management
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