CVE-2026-12165: contest-gallery contest gallery – upload & vote photos, media, sell with paypal & stripe Improper Privilege Management

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-12165 is a high (CVSS 8.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in contest-gallery contest gallery – upload & vote photos, media, sell with paypal & stripe. EPSS estimates a 0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 32.6% of scored vulnerabilities. Fixed in 30.0.3.

Timeline

1. 17-06-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 17-06-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

The Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 30.0.2 via the `RegistryUserRole` parameter. This is due to the plugin's admin menu being registered at the `edit_posts` capability level — granting Contributor-level users access to the plugin's admin pages and a valid `cg_admin` nonce — while the option-saving handler in `change-options-and-sizes.php` performs no `current_user_can()` capability check beyond `check_admin_referer('cg_admin')`, and the `RegistryUserRole` value is processed only through `sanitize_text_field()` and `htmlentities()` without restriction to an allowlist of permitted role names. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to overwrite the plugin's stored `RegistryUserRole` option with `administrator`, which the `cg_create_wp_user_from_google_user` function then reads back from the `contest_gal1ery_registry_and_login_options` database table without any allowlist validation and passes directly to `wp_update_user()`, effectively promoting a newly registered Google sign-in account to Administrator.

• CWE-269Improper Privilege ManagementThe product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.