Vulnerability Report

CVE-2026-8809

Title: Privilege Escalation via Validation Bypass in ACF: Extended

Privilege Escalation

Proof Of Concept

PoC Available for CVE-2026-8809

CWE Category CWE-269
Published Date May 28, 2026
Modified Date May 29, 2026
Exploit Status Available
Score 9.8 CVSS v3.1
Exploit Probability (EPSS)
0.49%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2026-8809: The Advanced Custom Fields: Extended plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Validation Bypass in all versions up to and including 0.9.2.5. The vulnerability exists due to the after_validate_save_post() function unconditionally trusting the attacker-controlled _acf_post_id POST parameter — with no authentication or integrity verification — to select a cleanup branch that silently discards all validation errors not prefixed with acfe:. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to suppress both the role allow-list validation error added by acfe_field_user_roles::validate_front_value() and the administrator-role capability guard error added by acfe_module_form_action_user::validate_action(), causing wp_insert_user() to execute with an attacker-supplied administrator role argument and resulting in the creation of a new administrator-level user account. Exploitation requires the target site to expose a public ACFE frontend form configured with a Create User action that maps a role field.

CVSS v3.1
Source Entity [email protected]
Severity CRITICAL
9.8
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
N/A
Interaction
NONE
Confidentiality
N/A
Integrity
N/A
Availability
N/A
Scope
UNCHANGED
RAW VECTOR CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns

CVE-2026-8809 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)

GitHub https://github.com/izxci/CVE-2026-8809
View Code
MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

Attack Vector Matrix

Access Vector NETWORK
Complexity LOW
Privileges N/A
Interaction NONE
CVSS Vector String CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected Stack

No specific products linked.