Cyber Posture

CVE-2025-12158

Critical

Published: 04 November 2025

Published
04 November 2025
Modified
15 April 2026
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0017 38.4th percentile
Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Description

Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.

Security Summary

CVE-2025-12158, published on 2025-11-04, is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Simple User Capabilities plugin for WordPress. It arises from a missing capability check in the suc_submit_capabilities() function, affecting all versions up to and including 1.0. The issue is rated critical with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) and is associated with CWE-862 (Missing Authorization).

Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability remotely over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction or privileges required. Successful exploitation allows them to elevate the role of any user account to administrator, potentially granting full control over the WordPress site and leading to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Advisories and references, including the Wordfence threat intelligence page, the official WordPress plugin page, and the plugin's source code on SVN, provide further details on the vulnerability. Security practitioners should review these for any patch availability or recommended actions, such as plugin deactivation.

Details

CWE(s)
CWE-862

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Why these techniques?

Unauthenticated remote exploitation of a public-facing WordPress plugin vulnerability enables initial access (T1190) and privilege escalation to administrator (T1068).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

References