CVE-2026-74001

User Registration PRO – Custom Registration Form, Login Form, and User Profile WordPress Plugin <= 5.4.5 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Account Takeover

2026-08-19 00:00
0xd4rk5id3

Strategic Overview

At a glance

CVE-2026-74001 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication vulnerability in the User Registration PRO WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 5.4.5. It carries a CVSS score of 9.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 5.4.6; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed August 2026, reported by 0xd4rk5id3.

Vulnerability Overview

The User Registration PRO – Custom Registration Form, Login Form, and User Profile WordPress Plugin plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 5.4.5. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a user's identity prior to updating their details. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change arbitrary user's details, including administrators, and leverage that to gain access to their account.

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 privileges on the target site, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.

CWE-287: Improper Authentication

Reaching this weakness in User Registration PRO <= 5.4.5 takes no account at all. Improper authentication means the mechanism that proves who a caller is can be satisfied without the secret it was supposed to require.

An attacker authenticates as another user — administrators included — without ever knowing a password, so password policies and login rate limits never come into play. For User Registration PRO the fix is 5.4.6: builds <= 5.4.5 are affected, anything from 5.4.6 onward is not.

Remediation

Update to version 5.4.6, or a newer patched version

How does WordSec protect against this?

This one needs no account at all, which puts it outside what login hardening can reach; WordSec's login security narrows the account-level paths around it, and the firewall is what inspects the request itself. None of that substitutes for the fix: User Registration PRO 5.4.6 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.

  • Login Security
  • Alerts

External References

Related records

Other vulnerabilities in User Registration PRO – Custom Registration Form, Login Form, and User Profile WordPress Plugin

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