CVE
WishList Member CourseCure Courses privilege escalation to admin via settings save endpoint
Affects CourseCure Courses 1.5.1 and earlier. Fixed in 1.5.3.
Written by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5 from the sources below. Verify against them.
- Exploited
- No known exploitation
- Fix
- Fixed in 1.5.3
- Who is exposed
- Specific setups only
Do first: Upgrade to a fixed version: 1.5.3.
- Last modified
- Whether it needs action now or is a reference record, by fixed rules, with why. Last checked is when cve.now last re-read it.What do these mean? →
- Reference
- Last checked
- FIRST's estimate of the chance attackers exploit it in the next 30 days, updated daily.What do these mean? →
- 0.44% · 38th percentile
- A 0-100 score for how much a CVE matters across the industry: exploitation, exposure, how widely the software is used, severity and whether a fix exists.What do these mean? →
- 17/100 · provisional
- How many real-world setups can hit the bug, from the vendor's advisory and CISA data. It does not know your setup.What do these mean? →
- Specific setups only
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
The CourseCure Courses plugin for WordPress has a flaw that lets a logged-in user with basic subscriber access raise their account to administrator. The attack can be carried out remotely over the network, and it works because a settings-saving function is missing an authorization check, so an attacker can change WordPress options such as the default role and open registration.
Read the original description
The CourseCure Courses plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in versions up to, and including, 1.5.1. This is due to a missing capability check in the ajax_save_settings() function, which accepts arbitrary POST parameters and calls update_option() with attacker-controlled keys and values without any authorization verification. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator by setting the default_role WordPress option to 'administrator' and users_can_register to '1', then registering a new account that is automatically granted full administrator access.
Who should check
Sites running the CourseCure Courses WordPress plugin, a WishList Member product, at versions before 1.5.3.
cve.now Index
- Exploitation?/40Unknown. No CISA SSVC exploitation rating yet
- Exposure8/25Specific setups only, reachable over the network
- Reach?/20Unknown. No tracked technology or package matched
- Severity8.8/10CVSS 8.8
- No patch0/5No signal
What would change the score
- Would score about 67 if added to CISA KEV
- Would score about 62 if CISA's SSVC rates exploitation active
- Would score about 24 if CISA's SSVC rates it automatable
What to do
Upgrade to a fixed version: 1.5.3.
Check your systems with an agent
Paste this into a coding or ops agent. It checks your systems read-only and reports a table per asset.
Check whether my systems are affected by CVE-2026-15309 (CourseCure Courses <= 1.5.1 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation to 'ajax_save_settings' Endpoint), using the cve.now data below.
Rules: work read-only. Do not run exploit code, proof-of-concept scripts or scanners that send attack payloads, and do not change any configuration, package, image or deployment. Report findings only.
What cve.now has for CVE-2026-15309 (entry last updated 2026-11-12):
Affected:
- WishList Member CourseCure Courses: through 1.5.1
Fixed versions: 1.5.3.
Setup: unknown whether the bug needs a non-default feature or setting. Check the advisory.
Attacker needs: network access, low-privilege login, no user action.
CISA KEV: CVE-2026-15309 is not listed as of cve.now's last read.
This KEV status is for CVE-2026-15309 only. If you also check another CVE, look up its own KEV status; never assume it from this one.
How to check:
- Installed software: check what is actually running, not what a repo declares. Read the version from each host, container image and Kubernetes node (the binary's version output, the OS package database, image layers), and check whether the conditions above hold there. Distribution packages may carry a backported fix under an older version number; confirm against the distribution's own advisory.
Verify against the linked advisories before concluding, and cite the date you read each one:
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/2d754689-0d64-4cb8-9c73-7dd6d4fb0c72?source=cve
- https://my.wishlistmember.com/changelog/coursecure-courses-1-5-3/
Do not conclude an asset is unaffected unless you checked it and the evidence covers both its version and the conditions above. If you could not check something, mark it unknown and say what is missing.
Report a table with one row per asset and these columns: Asset | Version or build | Status (affected, fixed, not applicable, unknown) | Compensating controls | Exposure (internet-facing, internal, none) | Evidence | Next action.
Entry: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-15309
For follow-up questions, use the cve.now MCP server at https://mcp.cve.now/mcp (no authentication), for example execute with name cve.get and arguments {"id": "CVE-2026-15309"}.Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- WishList Member CourseCure Courses
through 1.5.1
Evidence 4
CVE record · 2
Establishes: The identifier and description.
- Record
- Record
Corrections
None so far.
Something wrong on this page? Report an error. Every fix is listed here.
Questions about CVE-2026-15309
Is CVE-2026-15309 being exploited?
It is not in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and CISA's SSVC assessment does not mark exploitation as active. That does not mean it has not been attacked: vendors and researchers can report attacks before CISA lists them. No public exploit code is tracked.Source: cve.now feed data
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-15309?
CourseCure Courses: through 1.5.1.Source: cve.now feed data
How do I fix CVE-2026-15309?
Upgrade CourseCure Courses to version 1.5.3 or later, which is the version listed as the fix for this vulnerability.Source: my.wishlistmember.com