CVE-2025-13618
Published: 05 May 2026
Summary
CVE-2025-13618 is a critical-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Dreamsmarketplace (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 25.5th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-2 (Account Management) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-13618 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Mentoring plugin for WordPress, affecting all versions up to and including 1.2.8. The flaw arises in the mentoring_process_registration() function, which fails to properly restrict the user roles that can be assigned during registration, enabling attackers to create accounts with elevated privileges.
Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction, as reflected in its CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Exploitation allows remote attackers to register administrator-level user accounts, granting them high-impact access to confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected WordPress site.
Mitigation guidance is available in the plugin's changelog at https://mentoring-wp.dreamsmarketplace.com/documentation/changelog.html, the theme listing on ThemeForest at https://themeforest.net/item/mentoring-education-wordpress-theme/36457081, and Wordfence's threat intelligence details at https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/id/7192fb4c-0434-4e11-a2a7-c205b8d6b68e?source=cve, which address this CWE-269 improper privilege management issue.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-209637
Vulnerability details
The Mentoring plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.2.8. This is due to the plugin not properly restricting the roles that users can register with in the mentoring_process_registration() function. This makes…
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it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register with administrator-level user accounts.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Direct remote unauthenticated exploitation of improper privilege management in public-facing WordPress plugin to create admin accounts.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-2 requires managed account creation processes with approval for registrations and privilege assignments, directly preventing unauthenticated attackers from registering administrator accounts via the flawed mentoring_process_registration() function.
SI-10 mandates validation of inputs to the registration function, ensuring only authorized roles are processed and blocking improper privilege escalation.
AC-6 enforces the principle of least privilege, prohibiting the assignment of administrator roles during registration and limiting damage from any elevated accounts created.