What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-9842: Backstage <= 1.4.2 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Permissive Demo Role Capabilities

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 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: 2026-07-08 · updated 2026-07-08
• Weakness: CWE-269

Description

The Backstage - Customizer Demo Access plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.4.2. This is due to the plugin assigning the `manage_options` capability to the `backstage_customizer_user` demo role, which is more permissive than necessary for Customizer-only demo access. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to navigate beyond the Customizer and update arbitrary WordPress options such as `default_role`, leading to privilege escalation.

Affected products

• pixelgrade Backstage – Customizer Demo Access: through 1.4.2

References

• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/backstage/tags/1.4.2/includes/class-Backstage.php#L154
• https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/backstage/tags/1.4.2/includes/class-Backstage.php#L348
• https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/5bcf1f02-0946-4e96-a81b-00c7c48d64b3?source=cve

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