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HIGH

CVE-2026-12165

CVE-2026-12165 — Contest Gallery <= 30.0.2 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation via 'RegistryUserRole' Parameter

The Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 30.0.2 via the `RegistryUserRole` parameter. This is due to the plugin's admin menu being registered at the `edit_posts` capability level — granting Contributor-level users access to the plugin's admin pages and a valid `cg_admin` nonce — while the option-saving handler in `change-options-and-sizes.php` performs no `current_user_can()` capability check beyond `check_admin_referer('cg_admin')`, and the `RegistryUserRole` value is processed only through `sanitize_text_field()` and `htmlentities()` without restriction to an allowlist of permitted role names. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to overwrite the plugin's stored `RegistryUserRole` option with…

Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, Wordfence

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Unreported

no source claims exploitation

EPSS

0%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

contest gallery

contest_gallery_upload_vote_photos_media_sell_with_paypal_stripe

CVSS base

8.8

HIGH

CISA SSVC assessment

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

CISA

Exploitation

None

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

No

can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Total

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

contest gallery

Products (1)

contest gallery upload vote photos media sell with paypal stripe

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

ScoreVersionSeverityExpl.ImpactSource
8.8CVSS 3.1HIGH——cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

  • CWE-269

Attack patterns reported against this CVE. The ATT&CK techniques below are inferred from its weakness class.

  • T1548Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism

References

6 on the record

Elsewhere on this site

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

  • No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
  • No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
  • No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.