CVE-2026-2720
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 Hr Press Lite plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized access of sensitive employee data due to a missing capability check on the `hrp-fetch-employees` AJAX action in all versions up to, and including, 1.0.2. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to retrieve sensitive employee information including names, email addresses, phone numbers, salary/pay rates, employment dates, and employment status.
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 analysis · high confidenceThe Hr Press Lite WordPress plugin lacks a capability check on the `hrp-fetch-employees` AJAX action, allowing any authenticated user with Subscriber-level access or higher to query and retrieve sensitive employee records including names, emails, phone numbers, salary/pay rates, employment dates, and status. This is a broken access control vulnerability (CWE-862).
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify Hr Press Lite plugin is installedCheck your WordPress plugins directory or WordPress admin under Plugins > Installed Plugins for 'Hr Press Lite' or 'HR Press Lite'Affected if The plugin is installed and active in WordPress
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Identify the AJAX endpoint availabilityCheck if the file handling `hrp-fetch-employees` AJAX action exists in the plugin directory (typically in an ajax.php or similar file within the plugin folder)Affected if The AJAX handler for `hrp-fetch-employees` exists in the plugin code
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Test unauthenticated or low-privilege accessSend a POST request to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php with action=hrp-fetch-employees using a test account that has Subscriber role (or no authentication)Affected if The request returns employee data or does not return a permission denied error
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Inspect the AJAX handler codeExamine the PHP file containing the hrp-fetch-employees handler - look for any `current_user_can()` capability check before processing the requestAffected if No capability check (or only a weak check) is present before querying employee records
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Verify sensitive data exposureConfirm the response contains sensitive fields such as names, emails, phone numbers, salary/pay rates, employment dates, or employment statusAffected if The AJAX response includes any of these sensitive employee fields without proper authorization
A user is affected if the Hr Press Lite plugin is installed, the hrp-fetch-employees AJAX action exists, and any authenticated user with Subscriber-level access can retrieve sensitive employee information without a capability check.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataApply the latest plugin update containing a fix, or manually add a WordPress capability check (e.g., `current_user_can('manage_options')` or a custom capability) to the AJAX handler before processing the request.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-2720 — 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-2026-2720 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