CVE-2026-4484: Masteriyo LMS <= 2.1.6 - Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Student+) Privilege Escalation to Administrator

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-03-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-862

Description

The Masteriyo LMS plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 2.1.6. This is due to the plugin allowing a user to update the user role through the 'InstructorsController::prepare_object_for_database' function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Student-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to that of an administrator.

Affected products

Masteriyo - LMS: through 2.1.6

References

https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/learning-management-system/tags/2.1.6/includes/RestApi/Controllers/Version1/InstructorsController.php#L305
https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3490792/learning-management-system/trunk/includes/RestApi/Controllers/Version1/InstructorsController.php
https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/265be0af-66a4-4636-ab81-f8e2c5a1282e?source=cve

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