CVE-2026-109400

high

Assigned by CNA: wordfence

Published 2026-10-16 · Modified 2026-10-16

Discuss on Community Propose mitigation

CVSS v3

7.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

7.5

Description

The InstaWP Connect – 1-click WP Staging & Migration plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 0.1.4.1 This is due to the plugin registering its admin page via `add_management_page()` using a role name returned by `InstaWP_Setting::get_allowed_role()` as the required capability — which WordPress resolves as a real capability match for any user holding that role — combined with `generate_section_field()` rendering the master API key from the `instawp_api_options` option directly as the `value` attribute of a plain-text HTML input with no additional `manage_options` or equivalent capability check. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access and above to read the plaintext master API key, use its SHA-256-derived secret as a bearer token accepted by the plugin's REST API `validate_api_request()`, and call `POST /wp-json/instawp-connect/v2/auto-login` to mint a 30-second single-use login URL that sets an administrator authentication cookie — fully escalating their privileges. Exploitation requires the site to be actively connected to InstaWP and an administrator to have added the attacker's role to the plugin's Sync Tab Access list (`instawp_sync_tab_roles`); notably, the settings tab suppression logic only hides the tab when `administrator` is absent from the list entirely, meaning a mixed configuration retaining administrator alongside a lower role still serves the full settings page — including the API key — to the lower-privileged user.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

83%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

Propose a mitigation on Community Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

References

CWEs

CWE-269

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.