Advanced Custom Fields: Extended <= 0.9.2.5 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Validation Bypass to '_acf_post_id' Parameter

Summary

The Advanced Custom Fields: Extended plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Validation Bypass in all versions up to and including 0.9.2.5. The vulnerability exists due to the after_validate_save_post() function unconditionally trusting the attacker-controlled _acf_post_id POST parameter — with no authentication or integrity verification — to select a cleanup branch that silently discards all validation errors not prefixed with acfe:. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to suppress both the role allow-list validation error added by acfe_field_user_roles::validate_front_value() and the administrator-role capability guard error added by acfe_module_form_action_user::validate_action(), causing wp_insert_user() to execute with an attacker-supplied administrator role argument and resulting in the creation of a new administrator-level user account. Exploitation requires the target site to expose a public ACFE frontend form configured with a Create User action that maps a role field.

Timeline

1. May 28, 2026, 10:27 PM UTCCVE published
2. May 29, 2026, 10:03 AM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: total

3. May 29, 2026, 10:08 AM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• hwk-fr Advanced Custom Fields: Extended

  through 0.9.2.5

References 7