Pronamic Pay <= 10.1.0 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via Gravity Forms 'Update user role' Field
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 10.2.0
- Affected Plugin
- Pronamic Pay
- Affected Version
<= 10.1.0- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
- CVE
CVE-2026-16635
At a glance
CVE-2026-16635 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the Pronamic Pay WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 10.1.0. 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 Subscriber level or above. The issue is fixed in version 10.2.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2026, reported by Afan.
Vulnerability Overview
The Pronamic Pay plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 10.1.0 This is due to the `maybe_update_user_role()` function passing an attacker-controlled Gravity Forms field value (`$lead[$feed->user_role_field_id]`) directly into `WP_User::set_role()` without any allowlist validation, capability comparison, or permission check to constrain which roles can be assigned. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to escalate their own WordPress account to Administrator by tampering with the role field value in a form submission. Exploitation requires that an administrator has already configured a Pronamic Pay payment feed in Gravity Forms with the **Update User Role** option enabled and mapped to a form field; once that configuration is in place, no further preconditions exist to prevent an authenticated attacker from exploiting this vulnerability.
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-269: Improper Privilege Management
Pronamic Pay <= 10.1.0 carries this weakness at maybe_update_user_role(), and reaching it takes an account at Subscriber level or above. Improper privilege management means the code lets an account end up with capabilities its role should not have.
It converts a low-privileged account into an administrative one, which makes every other restriction on the site irrelevant. For Pronamic Pay the fix is 10.2.0: builds <= 10.1.0 are affected, anything from 10.2.0 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 10.2.0, 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: Pronamic Pay 10.2.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
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