CVE-2025-68514

Paid Member Subscriptions <= 2.16.8 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Insecure Direct Object Reference

2026-02-11 00:00
daroo

Strategic Overview

Status
Patched in 2.16.9
Affected Plugin
Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction
Affected Version
<= 2.16.8
CVSS
4.3Medium
Weakness type
CWE-639 · Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
CVE
CVE-2025-68514
View all Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction vulnerabilities

At a glance

CVE-2025-68514 is a medium-severity Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in the Paid Membership Subscriptions WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.16.8. It carries a CVSS score of 4.3 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity). Exploitation requires an authenticated account at Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 2.16.9; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed February 2026, reported by daroo.

Vulnerability Overview

The Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference in all versions up to, and including, 2.16.8 due to missing validation on a user controlled key. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to perform an unauthorized action.

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.

CWE-639: Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key

Reaching this weakness in Paid Membership Subscriptions <= 2.16.8 takes an account at Subscriber level or above. Authorization bypass through a user-controlled key, often called insecure direct object reference, means the application looks up a record by an identifier from the request without checking that the caller owns it.

Changing a number in the request is enough to read or modify other users' records, which on commerce and membership sites means customer data. For Paid Membership Subscriptions the fix is 2.16.9: builds <= 2.16.8 are affected, anything from 2.16.9 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 2.16.9, or a newer patched version

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. None of that substitutes for the fix: Paid Membership Subscriptions 2.16.9 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-68514https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/2b70032d-cfd5-4415-a5d6-d594ed265a5bhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-68514

Related records

Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C