Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-36157

An issue was discovered in the Ultimate Member plugin before 2.1.12 for WordPress, aka Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via User Roles. Due to the lack of filtering on the role parameter that could be supplied during the registration process, an attacker could supply the role parameter with a WordPress capability (or any custom Ultimate Member role) and effectively be granted those privileges.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a CRITICAL severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 10.0, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from ultimatemember organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2021, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.

Published

2021-01-04T18:15:13.777

Last Modified

2024-11-21T05:28:50.250

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 10.0 (CRITICAL)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: LOW
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

10.0

Impact Score

6.4

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
NVD-CWE-noinfo

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	ultimatemember	ultimate_member	< 2.1.12	Yes

References

https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-member/#developers Release Notes, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/33f059c5-58e5-44b9-bb27-793c3cedef3b Exploit, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2020/11/critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-affect-100k-sites-using-ultimate-member-plugin/ Exploit, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-member/#developers Release Notes, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://wpscan.com/vulnerability/33f059c5-58e5-44b9-bb27-793c3cedef3b Exploit, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2020/11/critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities-affect-100k-sites-using-ultimate-member-plugin/ Exploit, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For ultimatemember's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.