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CVE-2026-12073 – Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Admin Account Takeover – ProfileGrid Wo…

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Summary

CVE-2026-12073 is a critical unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability in the ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities WordPress plugin (by Metagauss), affecting all versions up to and including 5.9.9.5. By exploiting a registration-form input-validation flaw, a remote unauthenticated attacker can take over the site administrator account and gain complete control of the WordPress installation. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Technical details

  • Root cause: The plugin fails to validate the user_login parameter when processing registration forms that do not include this field, and subsequently mishandles the resulting error messages — allowing unexpected write operations to proceed against existing user records.
  • Trigger conditions: An unauthenticated attacker submits a specially crafted registration request that omits the user_login parameter, causing the plugin’s error-handling path to overwrite the email address of the WordPress account with user ID=1 (typically the site administrator) with an attacker-controlled address.
  • Attack vector: Fully network-accessible with no prior authentication, credentials, or user interaction required (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N).
  • Impact: Once the administrator’s email address has been replaced, the attacker initiates the standard WordPress password-reset flow to their controlled address, gaining full administrative access to the site — resulting in complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Affected software

  • ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities (vendor: Metagauss) — all versions up to and including 5.9.9.5

Severity

  • CVSS v3.1 Base Score: 9.8 (Critical)
  • Vector String: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: Update the ProfileGrid plugin to version 5.9.9.6 or later, which contains the vendor-issued fix.
  • If immediate patching is not feasible: Temporarily disable user registration on the WordPress site, or restrict access to the plugin’s registration endpoints at the firewall or WAF level, until the update can be applied.

IONIX Status

The IONIX research team is tracking ongoing exploitation attempts and recommends immediate patching. Potentially affected assets are outlined in this post.

References

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