CVE-2025-39366: wProject Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

CVE-2025-39366 Overview

CVE-2025-39366 is an Incorrect Privilege Assignment vulnerability [CWE-266] in the Rocket Apps wProject WordPress theme. The flaw affects all versions of wProject before 5.8.0. Authenticated users with low-level roles such as Subscriber can elevate their privileges within the WordPress site. Successful exploitation grants attackers expanded control over content, configuration, and other site functions tied to higher-privileged roles.

The issue is tracked in the Patchstack vulnerability database as a Subscriber-level privilege escalation. It was published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) on May 19, 2025.

Critical Impact

An authenticated Subscriber can escalate privileges on the WordPress site, gaining unauthorized access to higher-privileged capabilities affecting confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Affected Products

• Rocket Apps wProject WordPress theme
• wProject versions prior to 5.8.0
• WordPress sites running vulnerable wProject installations

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-05-19 - CVE-2025-39366 published to NVD
• 2026-04-28 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-39366

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is an Incorrect Privilege Assignment flaw [CWE-266] in the wProject theme. The theme assigns capabilities or executes privileged actions without verifying that the requesting user holds the required role. An authenticated attacker with low privileges, such as a Subscriber account, can invoke functionality intended for administrators or other higher-privileged roles.

The attack is performed over the network against the WordPress site. It requires only low privileges and no user interaction, and it impacts confidentiality, integrity, and availability of site data and configuration. Refer to the Patchstack WordPress Vulnerability Report for advisory details.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing or incorrect role and capability validation within wProject theme handlers. Privileged operations are exposed to authenticated requests without enforcing that the caller possesses the matching WordPress capability. The theme effectively grants Subscriber-level sessions access to actions reserved for elevated roles.

Attack Vector

An attacker first registers or obtains a Subscriber account on a WordPress site running wProject before 5.8.0. The attacker then issues authenticated HTTP requests to the vulnerable theme endpoints, triggering operations that should require Editor or Administrator capabilities. Because no public exploit is currently listed, exploitation details are abstracted in the Patchstack advisory. EPSS data indicates a probability of 0.254% as of the latest scoring update.

No verified exploitation code is publicly available. See the Patchstack WordPress Vulnerability Report for technical context.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-39366

Indicators of Compromise

• Subscriber-level accounts performing actions normally restricted to Editor or Administrator roles.
• Unexpected changes to WordPress user roles, capabilities, or wp_usermeta entries.
• New administrator accounts or modified privileged accounts shortly after authenticated Subscriber activity.
• POST requests from low-privileged sessions to admin-ajax.php or theme-specific endpoints belonging to wProject.

Detection Strategies

• Audit WordPress role and capability changes via plugins such as activity loggers or by inspecting database tables directly.
• Correlate HTTP access logs with WordPress user identifiers to identify Subscriber accounts invoking privileged endpoints.
• Inventory installed themes and flag any wProject installation with a version earlier than 5.8.0.

Monitoring Recommendations

• Monitor user registration spikes on sites that permit open registration, especially those running wProject.
• Alert on new accounts being granted administrator, editor, or custom privileged roles outside change windows.
• Track web server logs for repeated authenticated requests to theme AJAX or REST endpoints from non-admin users.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-39366

Immediate Actions Required

• Update the wProject theme to version 5.8.0 or later on all WordPress sites.
• Review existing WordPress user accounts and remove any unauthorized or unexpectedly privileged users.
• Temporarily disable open user registration on affected sites until patching is complete.
• Rotate credentials for any accounts that may have been used to exploit the issue.

Patch Information

Upgrade wProject to version 5.8.0 or later, which addresses the Incorrect Privilege Assignment issue. Patch details are referenced in the Patchstack WordPress Vulnerability Report.

Workarounds

• Disable the wProject theme and switch to a maintained theme until the update can be applied.
• Set users_can_register to 0 in WordPress settings to block new low-privileged account creation.
• Restrict access to /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php and theme endpoints using a web application firewall rule for unauthenticated and Subscriber sessions.

# Configuration example: disable open registration via WP-CLI
wp option update users_can_register 0
wp theme update wproject --version=5.8.0