What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-57996: phpMyFAQ - Privilege Escalation via Missing SuperAdmin Guard in user/add Endpoint

• 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: 2026-07-15 · updated 2026-07-16
• Weakness: CWE-269

Description

phpMyFAQ before 4.1.5 contains a privilege escalation vulnerability in the user/add API endpoint that allows non-SuperAdmin administrators to create SuperAdmin accounts. A delegated administrator with USER_ADD/EDIT/DELETE permissions can call POST /admin/api/user/add with isSuperAdmin: true and attacker-chosen credentials to create a SuperAdmin account, then authenticate as that account to achieve full instance takeover.

Affected products

• thorsten phpMyFAQ: before 4.1.5 — fixed in 4.1.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: thorsten phpMyFAQ 4.1.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/security/advisories/GHSA-r2f4-v277-hvw9
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/phpmyfaq-privilege-escalation-via-missing-superadmin-guard-in-user-add-endpoint
• https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/security/advisories/GHSA-r2f4-v277-hvw9

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