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CVE-2026-56028 – Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation – Easy Elements for Elementor WordPress Plu…

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Summary

CVE-2026-56028 is a critical unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability in the Easy Elements for Elementor – Addons & Website Templates WordPress plugin by themewant, affecting all versions up to and including 1.4.9. With a CVSS score of 9.8 (Critical), the flaw allows any unauthenticated remote attacker to create a WordPress account with full administrator privileges, leading to complete site takeover with no credentials or user interaction required.

Technical details

  • Root cause: The plugin’s AJAX-based registration handler processes attacker-supplied user metadata without any key whitelist or blocklist validation. By passing crafted values through the custom_meta POST parameter, an attacker can cause update_user_meta() to overwrite the wp_capabilities database entry for a newly registered user, assigning them administrator-level capabilities (CWE-266: Incorrect Privilege Assignment).
  • Trigger conditions: WordPress user registration must be enabled on the target site, and at least one publicly accessible page must render the plugin’s Login/Register widget. The registration nonce (easy_elements_nonce) is exposed in the page DOM and is retrievable without authentication, removing any effective barrier to exploitation.
  • Attack vector: Fully remote and unauthenticated — exploitable over the network by any attacker who can reach the WordPress site’s front end. No special knowledge of the target environment is required beyond the presence of the widget.
  • Impact: Upon successful exploitation, the attacker gains a WordPress administrator account, granting complete control over the site: installing or modifying plugins and themes, creating backdoors, accessing all stored data, and pivoting to the underlying server depending on hosting configuration (Confidentiality: High / Integrity: High / Availability: High).
  • Relationship to CVE-2026-9018: A prior vulnerability in the same plugin (CVE-2026-9018, affecting versions ≤ 1.4.5) was rooted in the same class of flaw in the same registration handler. Users who previously patched by upgrading to versions 1.4.6–1.4.9 remain vulnerable to CVE-2026-56028, as the underlying issue was not fully remediated until version 1.5.0.

Affected software

  • Easy Elements for Elementor – Addons & Website Templates (WordPress plugin by themewant), versions ≤ 1.4.9

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
  • CWE: CWE-266 – Incorrect Privilege Assignment

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate action: Update the Easy Elements for Elementor plugin to version 1.5.0 or later. The vendor released the security fix in version 1.5.0 (June 17, 2026); the current release is 1.5.1 (June 18, 2026). Both versions resolve this vulnerability.
  • If immediate patching is not possible:
    • Disable WordPress user registration (Settings → General → Membership) until the plugin can be updated.
    • Remove or unpublish any pages containing the plugin’s Login/Register widget to eliminate the exposed attack surface.
    • Apply web application firewall (WAF) rules to block crafted custom_meta POST parameters targeting the plugin’s AJAX registration endpoint.
  • Verify remediation: After updating, confirm the installed plugin version is 1.5.0 or higher via the WordPress admin dashboard (Plugins → Installed Plugins).

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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