Privilege escalation in Meta Box Frontend Submission

CVE-2026-13355

The Meta Box AIO plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation to Administrator in versions up to, and including, 3.11.0. This is due to a chained flaw: the populate_via_query_string() function in the mb-frontend-submission component unconditionally overrides the form's target object_id from the GET parameter 'rwmb_frontend_field_object_id' without any authorization check, and Form::process() lacks the user_can_edit() check present in render(), allowing unauthenticated attackers to overwrite the post_content of any page with an arbitrary shortcode via wp_update_post(); the mb-user-profile component then directly trusts the 'role' and 'auto_login' shortcode attributes in the injected [mb_user_profile_register] shortcode with no role validation. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to elevate their privileges to Administrator. The standalone plugins Meta Box Frontend Submission (in versions up to 4.5.6) and Meta Box User Profile (versions up to 3.11.0) are also affected.

Vulnerability class: Privilege Escalation

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (48.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 49th percentile — 48.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-13355: held from 0.004 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.006 · change: +0.002

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-13355?
CVE-2026-13355 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Meta Box Frontend Submission, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-09-22.
How severe is CVE-2026-13355?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2026-13355 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.