CVE-2023-41954
Published: 17 May 2024
Summary
CVE-2023-41954 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Properfraction Profilepress. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).
Operationally, ranked in the top 6.9% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Deeper analysis
CVE-2023-41954 is an improper privilege management flaw, tracked under CWE-269, that permits privilege escalation in the ProfilePress WordPress plugin maintained by ProfilePress Membership Team. The vulnerability affects all versions through 4.13.1 and carries a CVSS 3.1 base score of 8.6.
An unauthenticated attacker with network access can exploit the issue without user interaction, resulting in limited privilege escalation that yields low impact to confidentiality, high impact to integrity, and low impact to availability.
Advisories published by Patchstack document the unauthenticated limited privilege escalation vector and identify the affected plugin versions, directing administrators to apply the vendor-supplied update that resolves the flaw.
EPSS for the CVE rose from lower values to a peak of 0.2039 on 2025-12-11 before receding to the current score of 0.0977, indicating that exploitation interest increased after public disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-46413
Vulnerability details
Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in ProfilePress Membership Team ProfilePress allows Privilege Escalation.This issue affects ProfilePress: from n/a through 4.13.1.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Policy addresses roles, responsibilities, and privilege management to prevent improper privilege assignments.
Access supervision ensures privileges are assigned and managed without improper escalation or retention.
Assigning group/role memberships and access authorizations (privileges) while reviewing accounts addresses improper privilege management.
Enforces proper privilege management by requiring all decisions through the verified reference monitor.
By mandating division of duties across roles, the control enforces proper privilege management and prevents a single entity from controlling an entire sensitive process.
Implements core proper privilege management by restricting to only required rights.
Policy requires training on privilege management and least privilege, making it harder to exploit improper privilege management weaknesses.
Training covers proper privilege management practices, making incorrect privilege assignments less likely.