CVE-2026-86583
Description
The Import and export users and customers plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 2.4.17 via the plugin's own export and re-import workflow. The vulnerability exists because the exporter writes CSV cells using fputcsv() with a NUL byte (\0) as the escape character, while the importer parses the same file using SplFileObject::fgetcsv() with only a single delimiter argument, causing PHP's default backslash escape character to be applied instead; because the export column layout places display_name immediately before the role column and nickname immediately after, an attacker can store crafted values in those two profile fields — saved by WordPress core via the standard profile page — such that the escape mismatch causes the parser to merge the display_name cell into the role field and rebalance the column count via nickname, yielding administrator as the parsed role for their own row when it reaches the import_user function's add_role function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or above to escalate their privileges to Administrator. Exploitation requires a site administrator to trigger the plugin's documented export re-import migration with both "Update existing users" and "Update roles for existing users" set to "yes".
Predictions
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 withsource_tier=community-verified.
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/import-users-from-csv-with-meta/tags/2.4.17/classes/batch_exporter.php#L459
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/import-users-from-csv-with-meta/tags/2.4.17/classes/helper.php#L78
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/import-users-from-csv-with-meta/tags/2.4.17/classes/import.php#L1356
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/import-users-from-csv-with-meta/tags/2.4.17/classes/import.php#L872
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/import-users-from-csv-with-meta/tags/2.4.17/classes/import.php#L888
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3687349/import-users-from-csv-with-meta
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/5b0f3444-4c10-45ce-a00b-4ed6038b8846?source=cve
CWEs
CWE-266
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.