CVE-2025-5486: WP Email Debug 1.0 - 1.1.0 - Missing Authorization to Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Password Reset

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-06-06 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-862

Description

The WP Email Debug plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation due to a missing capability check on the WPMDBUG_handle_settings() function in versions 1.0 to 1.1.0. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to enable debugging and send all emails to an attacker controlled address and then trigger a password reset for an administrator to gain access to an administrator account.

Affected products

dr_scythe WP Email Debug: from 1.0 through 1.1.0

References

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-email-debug/trunk/hooks.php#L71
https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/d3af64a2-3bd6-47af-919e-00c5249dcc74?source=cve

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