Overview
A critical security vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-11620, has been discovered in the Multiple Roles per User plugin for WordPress. This vulnerability allows authenticated attackers with the ‘edit_users’ capability to modify user roles, potentially leading to privilege escalation, including promoting users to Administrator roles and demoting existing Administrators. All versions up to and including version 1.0 are affected. Immediate action is recommended to mitigate this risk.
Technical Details
The vulnerability resides in the lack of a proper capability check on the mrpu_add_multiple_roles_ui and mrpu_save_multiple_user_roles functions within the plugin. Specifically, these functions, responsible for displaying the user role editing interface and saving the changes, fail to verify if the user initiating the action has the necessary permissions to modify the roles of other users.
Code references:
By exploiting this missing check, an attacker possessing the edit_users capability (which is commonly granted to Editor roles, among others) can craft requests to these functions to arbitrarily change the roles of any user on the WordPress site.
CVSS Analysis
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score for CVE-2025-11620 is 7.2 (HIGH).
This score reflects the high impact of the vulnerability, allowing for unauthorized modification of critical user roles, potentially leading to complete compromise of the WordPress site.
Possible Impact
The consequences of exploiting this vulnerability can be severe:
- Privilege Escalation: Attackers can elevate their own privileges to Administrator, granting them complete control over the WordPress site.
- Account Takeover: Attackers can modify the roles of other users, including administrators, effectively taking over their accounts.
- Data Breach: With administrative access, attackers can access and exfiltrate sensitive data stored within the WordPress database.
- Website Defacement: Attackers can modify or delete website content.
- Malware Injection: Attackers can inject malicious code into the website, compromising visitors.
Mitigation and Patch Steps
The recommended mitigation steps are:
- Update the Plugin: If an updated version of the Multiple Roles per User plugin is available, update to the latest version immediately. This should include a fix for CVE-2025-11620.
- Disable the Plugin: If an update is not yet available, consider disabling the plugin until a patched version is released.
- Review User Roles: Carefully review user roles and capabilities, ensuring that only trusted users have the ‘edit_users’ capability.
- Monitor for Suspicious Activity: Monitor your WordPress site for any unusual activity, such as unauthorized changes to user roles.
