CVE-2026-15414
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedThe Subscriptions for WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in versions up to, and including, 2.0.0. This is due to the `save_meta_boxes()` function persisting the `_wps_plan_user_role` membership plan meta from `$_POST` without an allowlist that excludes privileged roles — the only validations applied, `sanitize_key()` and `wp_roles()->is_role()`, both accept `'administrator'` as a valid value, and the UI's `disabled` attribute on the role dropdown is a client-side-only control trivially bypassed via DevTools or a direct POST request; additionally, because the `wps_membership_plan` custom post type is registered with `capability_type => 'post'`, any user who can edit posts satisfies the `current_user_can('edit_post', $post_id)` guard in `save_meta_boxes()`. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to escalate their privileges to Administrator by storing `'administrator'` as the role granted on membership acquisition, which the Pro companion plugin then applies via `add_role()` during membership lifecycle events. Successful exploitation requires the Subscriptions for WooCommerce Pro companion plugin to be active, as it is the component that reads the stored `_wps_plan_user_role` meta via `get_post_meta()` and calls `add_role()` to apply the role during membership lifecycle events.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisPrivileges are granted, or fail to be dropped, incorrectly, so an action runs with more power than it should. An attacker who reaches that path inherits the excess privilege. The fix is least-privilege throughout, with explicit, checked transitions whenever privilege changes.
General guidance for the improper privilege management class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scopedVersion after 2.0.0 (check WordPress plugin repository for latest patched release)
- Check the current version of the Subscriptions for WooCommerce plugin in use by navigating to Plugins > Installed Plugins in the WordPress admin dashboard
- Identify whether the Pro companion plugin is active - if so, note that exploitation is possible
- Navigate to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin or use the WordPress plugin repository to obtain a version after 2.0.0
- Before upgrading, backup the WordPress database and files
- Deactivate both the core Subscriptions for WooCommerce plugin and the Pro companion plugin
- Upgrade both plugins to the latest available version from the WordPress plugin repository
- Reactivate the plugins and verify the membership plan settings no longer allow privileged roles like 'administrator' to be assigned
- Verify that lower-privileged users (Contributors) can no longer escalate their privileges to Administrator
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.
Free. We build fixes in the order the community asks for them — and we’ll tell you the moment this one lands.
We develop and verify an original fix where the vendor hasn’t, from $1,950. Deployed to your staging first — never straight to production.
Scope it with usSee what else the community needs solved on the solutions-needed board.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-15414 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-15414 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data