Simple Membership <= 4.1.2 - Membership Privilege Escalation
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 4.1.3
- Affected Plugin
- Simple Membership
- Affected Version
<= 4.1.2- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
- CVE
CVE-2022-2273
At a glance
CVE-2022-2273 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in the Simple Membership WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 4.1.2. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). The issue is fixed in version 4.1.3; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed July 2022, reported by Jet Infosystems.
Vulnerability Overview
The Simple Membership plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to membership related privilege escalation in versions up to, and including, 4.1.2. This is due to insufficient validation on the membership membership_level supplied which makes it possible for authenticated users to supplied arbitrary membership levels and be granted to permissions.
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
Reaching this weakness in Simple Membership <= 4.1.2 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. 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 Simple Membership the fix is 4.1.3: builds <= 4.1.2 are affected, anything from 4.1.3 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 4.1.3, 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: Simple Membership 4.1.3 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Simple Membership
- 8.8CVE-2023-41956: Simple Membership <= 4.3.4 Account Takeover
CVE-2023-41956 - 8.8CVE-2022-0328: Simple Membership CSRF to Arbitrary Member Deletion
CVE-2022-0328 - 8.8CVE-2019-14328: Simple Membership <= 3.8.4 Cross-Site Request Forgery
CVE-2019-14328 - 8.8CVE-2016-10884: Simple Membership <= 3.3.2 Multiple CSRF
CVE-2016-10884 - 7.3CVE-2023-41957: Simple Membership <= 4.3.4 Privilege escalation
CVE-2023-41957 - 7.2CVE-2026-15931: Simple Membership <= 4.7.7 Stored Cross-Site Scripting
CVE-2026-15931 - 7.2CVE-2026-42663: Simple Membership <= 4.7.2 Stored Cross-Site Scripting
CVE-2026-42663 - 7.2CVE-2023-4719: Simple Membership <= 4.3.5 Reflected XSS
CVE-2023-4719
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