CVE-2026-120070 — WordPress
HIGHCVE-2026-120070 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The User Frontend – Membership, User Registration, User Profile, User Directory & Content Restriction with Frontend Post Submission plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation…
Description
The User Frontend – Membership, User Registration, User Profile, User Directory & Content Restriction with Frontend Post Submission plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 4.3.13 via the post_content parameter of the submit_post() function. The vulnerability exists because the protected-shortcode blocklist guard inspects the sanitize_textarea_field() copy of the submitted post_content, while the copy actually persisted to the database is processed through wp_kses(), whose wp_kses_no_null() step strips C0 control bytes — allowing an attacker to inject a single \x01 byte inside the [wpuf-registration] tag name to defeat the strpos() blocklist check while the clean, functional shortcode is stored verbatim; strip_shortcodes() does not neutralize the stored shortcode either, because the Frontend container that registers it via add_shortcode() is only instantiated when is_admin() is false, and admin-ajax requests have is_admin() === true. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to inject a [wpuf-registration role="editor"] shortcode into a published post, causing a live Editor-role registration form to be rendered publicly on the frontend that any visitor — or the attacker themselves — can submit to mint a WordPress Editor account with an immediately active privileged session when the default autologin_after_registration setting is enabled.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2026-120070 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-120070 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.