CVE-2026-12165CWE-269

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

High · published June 17, 2026

CVSS v3.1
8.8
EPSS
0%
Percentile
32.6
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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 `administrator`, which the `cg_create_wp_user_from_google_user` function then reads back from the `contest_gal1ery_registry_and_login_options` database table without any allowlist validation and passes directly to `wp_update_user()`, effectively promoting a newly registered Google sign-in account to Administrator.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
8.8 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00396 · 32.6th percentile
Weakness
CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management
Published
2026-06-17T09:30Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 17 JUN 09:30Z
    Contest Gallery <= 30.0.2 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation via 'RegistryUserRole' Parameter
    cvelistv5