Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2025-14866 is a high-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Wordpress (inferred from references). Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 33th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-24 (Access Control Decisions) and AC-25 (Reference Monitor) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2025-14866 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Melapress Role Editor plugin for WordPress, affecting all versions up to and including 1.1.1. The flaw arises from a misconfigured capability check in the 'save_secondary_roles_field' function, classified under CWE-863 (Incorrect Authorization). It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating high severity due to its potential for significant confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts.
Authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or higher can exploit this vulnerability remotely with low complexity and no user interaction required. By targeting the flawed function, they can assign themselves elevated roles, including Administrator, enabling full control over the WordPress installation.
References include source code locations in the plugin's WordPress trac repository for version 1.1.0, such as classes/admin/additional-form-fields/class-user-profile.php at line 103 and classes/admin/ajax/class-admin-ajax.php, along with changeset 3439348 and a Wordfence threat intelligence report detailing the vulnerability.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-4409
Vulnerability Data
The Melapress Role Editor plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.1.1. This is due to a misconfigured capability check on the 'save_secondary_roles_field' function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with…
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Subscriber-level access and above, to assign themselves additional roles including Administrator.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
AC-3 directly requires correct enforcement of authorization decisions on every access request, structurally preventing incorrect checks.
AC-24 ensures access-control decisions are made and applied consistently, reducing the chance of an incorrect authorization result.
A reference monitor that is always invoked and tamper-proof forces every authorization decision through a verified, correct path.
Least-privilege assignments shrink the set of authorizations that must be checked correctly, limiting exposure to flawed checks.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
A.5.18's provisioning, revocation, review and adjustment of access rights (incl. before role changes/termination, with segregation and owner approval) directly stops incorrect authorization decisions from being exploitable in the vast majority of cases; the bounded remainder is incorrectness inside the authorization logic itself (e.g. flawed conditional or missing check) rather than rights that were wrongly granted.
A.8.3 directly mandates restricting access to information per policies via configuration, identity/group controls, isolation, and dynamic techniques that enforce correct authorization decisions, addressing most but not all slices of CWE-863 (e.g., remainder in non-access-decision authorization errors like timing or environmental factors).
Requiring consistency between access rights and classification plus formal approval steps ensures that the authorization logic correctly distinguishes between entities that should and should not be granted access.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-863, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.