CVE-2026-12144: Wholesale for WooCommerce <= 2.0.5 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation via 'user_role_set' Parameter

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 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: 2026-07-29 · updated 2026-07-30
Weakness: CWE-269

Description

The Wholesale for WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 2.0.5. This is due to the `save_requests_meta()` function applying only `sanitize_text_field()` to the `user_role_set` POST parameter before passing it directly to `WP_User::add_role()`, with no allowlist validation against permitted wholesale roles and no capability check such as `current_user_can('promote_users')` or `current_user_can('manage_options')`. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with author-level access and above to escalate their privileges to administrator by supplying `administrator` as the `user_role_set` value in a crafted request. The function is gated only by a nonce (`request_user_role_nonce`) that is rendered in the meta box on the `wwp_requests` post edit screen; because the post type is registered with `capability_type => 'post'`, any author-level user who has authored a `wwp_requests` post — such as one created via the wholesale registration form — can access this nonce and submit the role-assignment request.

Affected products

saadiqbal Wholesale for WooCommerce: through 2.0.5

References

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