CVE-2026-8809
CRITICAL
9.8
CVSS 3.1
Description
The Advanced Custom Fields: Extended plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Validation Bypass in all versions up to and including 0.9.2.5. The vulnerability exists due to the after_validate_save_post() function unconditionally trusting the attacker-controlled _acf_post_id POST parameter — with no authentication or integrity verification — to select a cleanup branch that silently discards all validation errors not prefixed with acfe:. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to suppress both the role allow-list validation error added by acfe_field_user_roles::validate_front_value() and the administrator-role capability guard error added by acfe_module_form_action_user::validate_action(), causing wp_insert_user() to execute with an attacker-supplied administrator role argument and resulting in the creation of a new administrator-level user account. Exploitation requires the target site to expose a public ACFE frontend form configured with a Create User action that maps a role field.
Metadata
Severity & Metrics
9.8
CRITICAL CVSS 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
SSVC — CISA Coordinator
Affected products (1)
| Vendor | Product | Platform | Versions |
|---|---|---|---|
| hwk-fr | Advanced Custom Fields: Extended | — | 0 ≤ 0.9.2.5 |
Weakness (CWE)
| CWE | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CWE-269 | cna | CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management |
CVSS scores (1)
| Score | Severity | Version | Source | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.8 | CRITICAL | 3.1 | cna | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
References (6)
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/bd332f49-5aa9-4207-89db-84692a6430e0?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/acf-extended/tags/0.9.2.4/includes/module-acf.php#L141
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/acf-extended/tags/0.9.2.4/includes/hooks.php#L636
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/acf-extended/tags/0.9.2.4/includes/modules/form/module-form-action-user.php#L715
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/acf-extended/tags/0.9.2.4/includes/modules/form/module-form-front.php#L94
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3551665/acf-extended