CVE-2025-5953

WP Human Resource Management 2.0.0 - 2.2.17 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Employee+) Privilege Escalation via wp_ajax_hrm_insert_employee AJAX Action

HIGH
8.8
CVSS Score
Published: July 4, 2025 at 01:44 AM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 09:49 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsWp Human Resource ManagementWP Human Resource Management

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Severity
HIGH8.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.4%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

The WP Human Resource Management plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation due to missing authorization in the ajax_insert_employee() and update_empoyee() functions in versions 2.0.0 through 2.2.17. The AJAX handler reads the client-supplied $_POST['role'] and, after basic cleaning via hrm_clean(), passes it directly to wp_insert_user() and later to $user->set_role() without verifying that the current user is allowed to assign that role. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Employee-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

2.0.0 ≤ v ≤ 2.2.172.0.0

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

8.8HIGHWordfence
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-862

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