Vulnerability Details CVE-2025-5953
The WP Human Resource Management plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation due to missing authorization in the ajax_insert_employee() and update_empoyee() functions in versions 2.0.0 through 2.2.17. The AJAX handler reads the client-supplied $_POST['role'] and, after basic cleaning via hrm_clean(), passes it directly to wp_insert_user() and later to $user->set_role() without verifying that the current user is allowed to assign that role. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Employee-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator.
Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score
EPSS Score 0.001
EPSS Ranking 20.5%
CVSS Severity
CVSS v3 Score 8.8
References
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/hrm/tags/2.2.17/class/employee.php#L543
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/hrm/tags/2.2.17/class/employee.php#L591
- https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/hrm/tags/2.2.17/class/employee.php#L89
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/hrm/#developers
- https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/3ba33a18-429f-4a3e-b018-bdfbbe6e8482?source=cve
Products affected by CVE-2025-5953
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.0.1
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.1.0
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.1.1
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.1.2
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.1.3
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.0
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.1
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.10
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.11
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.12
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.2
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.3
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.4
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.5
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.6
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.7
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.8
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cpe:2.3:a:mishubd:wp_human_resource_management:2.2.9