CVE-2025-13542CWE-269privilege-escalation

CVE-2025-13542

Critical · published December 3, 2025

CVSS v3.1
9.8
EPSS
0%
Percentile
29.6
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

🚨 A crafty oversight lets anyone register as an 'administrator' on your WordPress site! That's like letting someone decide their own VIP status at a party — and who wouldn't want to be the life of the bash? 🔥 Imagine a restaurant where anyone can walk in and claim to be the head chef. Without proper checks, you're suddenly serving dishes that might not be safe, and chaos could ensue in the kitchen! With this vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker can easily gain full control of your WordPress site. This means they can access sensitive data, modify site content, and even lock you out entirely! The consequences could be absolutely devastating, allowing malicious actors to use your site for their own nefarious purposes.

Put simply

Imagine a restaurant where anyone can walk in and claim to be the head chef. Without proper checks, you're suddenly serving dishes that might not be safe, and chaos could ensue in the kitchen! This privilege escalation flaw in the DesignThemes LMS plugin allows users to register with any role, including 'administrator', by exploiting the 'dtlms_register_user_front_end' function, which lacks proper restrictions on user role assignments.

What to do

With this vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker can easily gain full control of your WordPress site. This means they can access sensitive data, modify site content, and even lock you out entirely! The consequences could be absolutely devastating, allowing malicious actors to use your site for their own nefarious purposes. Immediately update the DesignThemes LMS plugin to version 1.0.5 or later. Review user roles and permissions on your site to ensure no unauthorized access has been granted. Implement additional security measures, like limiting user registrations to verified email addresses. You've got this! Follow these steps, and you'll reclaim full control over your WordPress site in no time! 🛡️

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
9.8 · CRITICAL
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00369 · 29.6th percentile
Weakness
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
Published
2025-12-03T01:15Z
References (2)
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 02 DEC 19:27Z
    DesignThemes LMS <= 1.0.4 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation
    cvelistv5