---
id: CVE-2026-16635
title: >-
  The Pronamic Pay plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in
  all versions up to, and including, 10.1.0 This is due to the
  `maybe_update_user_role()` function passing an attacker-controlled Gravity
  Forms field value (`$l…
summary: >-
  The Pronamic Pay plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in
  all versions up to, and including, 10.1.0 This is due to the
  `maybe_update_user_role()` function passing an attacker-controlled Gravity
  Forms field value (`$l…
severity: high
cvss: 8.8
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-269
published: '2026-08-01'
updated: '2026-08-01'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-16635'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L144
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L376
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L379
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/pronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php#L988
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3630401/pronamic-ideal/trunk/packages/wp-pay-extensions/gravityforms/src/Extension.php
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?old_path=%2Fpronamic-ideal/tags/10.1.0&new_path=%2Fpronamic-ideal/tags/10.2.0
    label: security@wordfence.com
  - url: >-
      https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d42b8856-e5d0-4122-98a4-8c959832b271?source=cve
    label: security@wordfence.com
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.003
epssPercentile: 0.22885
ingestedAt: '2026-08-02T05:17:48.381Z'
---

## Overview

The Pronamic Pay plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 10.1.0 This is due to the `maybe_update_user_role()` function passing an attacker-controlled Gravity Forms field value (`$lead[$feed->user_role_field_id]`) directly into `WP_User::set_role()` without any allowlist validation, capability comparison, or permission check to constrain which roles can be assigned. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to escalate their own WordPress account to Administrator by tampering with the role field value in a form submission. Exploitation requires that an administrator has already configured a Pronamic Pay payment feed in Gravity Forms with the **Update User Role** option enabled and mapped to a form field; once that configuration is in place, no further preconditions exist to prevent an authenticated attacker from exploiting this vulnerability.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.