CVE-2025-13618

Critical

Published: 05 May 2026

Published

05 May 2026

Modified

05 May 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0007 21.2th percentile

Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

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 21.2th 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).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) and 2 other techniques. What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

AC-2 Account Management good match

prevent

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 Information Input Validation good match

prevent

SI-10 mandates validation of inputs to the registration function, ensuring only authorized roles are processed and blocking improper privilege escalation.

AC-6 Least Privilege good match

prevent

AC-6 enforces the principle of least privilege, prohibiting the assignment of administrator roles during registration and limiting damage from any elevated accounts created.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.

attack.mitre.org →

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.

attack.mitre.org →

T1136 Create Account Persistence

Adversaries may create an account to maintain access to victim systems.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

Direct remote unauthenticated exploitation of improper privilege management in public-facing WordPress plugin to create admin accounts.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

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…

it possible for unauthenticated attackers to register with administrator-level user accounts.

Deeper analysisAI

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.