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CVE-2026-85681 – Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation / Site Takeover – WP Component WordPress Plugi

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Summary

CVE-2026-85681 is a critical improper privilege management vulnerability (CWE-269) affecting the WP Component WordPress plugin in versions up to and including 2.2.4. The plugin exposes an action to unauthenticated users without any capability or nonce checks, allowing attackers to overwrite arbitrary WordPress site options. On single-site installations, this can be leveraged to enable open user registration with a default role of administrator, resulting in full site takeover. The flaw has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (Critical).

Technical details

  • Root cause: One of the plugin’s AJAX/admin-ajax actions accepts an arbitrary option name and option value directly from the incoming request and writes it to the WordPress options table without verifying the requesting user’s capabilities or a valid nonce.
  • Trigger conditions: No authentication or user interaction is required; an attacker simply sends a crafted HTTP request to the exposed action.
  • Attack vector: Network — the vulnerable endpoint is reachable remotely over HTTP(S) with no prerequisites.
  • Impact: Arbitrary WordPress option overwrite. On single-site installs, attackers can set users_can_register to enabled and default_role to administrator, then self-register a new account with full administrative privileges — leading to complete compromise of the site (confidentiality, integrity, and availability all rated High impact).

Affected software

  • WP Component WordPress plugin, versions >= 0 and <= 2.2.4

Severity

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

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: No patched version has been released as of this writing. Site administrators should disable and remove the WP Component plugin until an official fix is published.
  • If the plugin must remain active: Restrict or block external access to the plugin’s admin-ajax action at the web server or WAF layer, closely monitor WordPress site options (particularly users_can_register and default_role) for unauthorized changes, and audit the users table for unexpected administrator accounts.
  • Ongoing: Monitor the plugin’s changelog/repository for a security release and apply it as soon as it becomes available.

References

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