CVE-2026-116624danbilabs Advanced Members for ACF improper privilege management
CVE-2026-116624 is a improper privilege management in danbilabs Advanced Members for ACF, rated high (8.8 on CVSS 3.1).
Why this priority: High severity, with no exploitation signal yet.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Deferred
What it is
The software lets a user or process gain privileges it should not have.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it over the network, with an ordinary user account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can read the data it protects, change data or behaviour and take it offline. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker reach data or actions their role should not allow.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet.
What to do
- No fixed version is listed yet. Find every place danbilabs Advanced Members for ACF runs, watch the references for a fix, and plan a replacement if it is no longer supported.
- While there is no fix, review who holds accounts that can reach it.
Description from NVD
The Advanced Members for ACF plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.3.0 via the `acf[_amem_local_user_password]` parameter of the `[advanced-members-account-password]` shortcode form submission. This is due to a PHP operator-precedence bug in the `pre_update_value` function of `acf/fields/class-user-password.php` that assigns boolean `true` instead of the resolved user ID to `$user_id`, causing the `_can_edit()` authorization check to pass for any logged-in user via PHP loose equality, and causing `wp_update_user()` to cast `'ID' => true` to integer `1` — unconditionally targeting the primary administrator account. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to overwrite the password of user ID 1 (the site's primary administrator) with an attacker-chosen value, granting full administrative access to the site. The intended exclusion guard in `Account::process` that strips the password field before saving is defeated because `amem_save_all_fields()` re-reads the full field list from `amem()->submission` and silently overwrites the caller-supplied excluded fields array with an empty array, ensuring the password field is always processed.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- WordPress sites and their plugins. Plugins run inside the site with its database access, and many sites are public.
- Permission checks in APIs and admin surfaces. The flaw sits between one role or tenant and another.
- Multi-tenant services. The flaw sits between one role or tenant and another.
Trust boundaries in play
- Authenticated network access. An account is needed, so exposure follows who can sign in: customers, partners or staff.
- Between one role or tenant and another. An attacker who crosses it can reach data or actions their role should not allow.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does danbilabs Advanced Members for ACF run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances can be reached from the internet or partner networks?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Read more
Advisories
More reading
- plugins.svn.wordpress.org/advanced-members/trunk/
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/advanced-members/tags/1.3.0/acf/fields/base/trait-amem-field.php#L30
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/advanced-members/tags/1.3.0/acf/fields/class-user-password.php#L117
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/advanced-members/tags/1.3.0/core/actions/account.php#L227
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/advanced-members/tags/1.3.0/core/functions-forms.php#L105
- plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3779180/advanced-members/trunk/acf/fields/class-user-password.php
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.