CVE-2026-12224
The Dokan Pro plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via update_capabilities REST Endpoint in all versions up to, and including, 5.0.4. This is due to the `update_capabilities()` REST handler accepting arbitrary capability strings from the request body and passing them directly to WP_User::add_cap() with no allowlist validation, only verifying that the caller holds the dokandar capability. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with a self-provisioned Vendor-level access and above, on sites with the Vendor Staff module enabled, to grant arbitrary WordPress capabilities, including administrator, to any vendor_staff account, leading to a full site takeover.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable remotely over the network, with an ordinary user account and with no action from the victim.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data, modify or destroy data and take the service offline.
- Weakness
- Privilege handling is faulty, so an account ends up with more rights than intended.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.