CVE-2026-121658.8HighCWE-269

CVE-2026-12165: Contest Gallery <= 30.0.2 - Authenticated (Author+) Privilege Escalation via 'RegistryUserRole' Parameter

contest-gallery · Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe

Affected: contest-gallery Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe · Exploitation: unlikely (under 1%)

Not in CyberSIXT coverage yet: no article names this CVE. This page shows the public record.

0.4%probability of exploitation in the next 30 days

34th percentile

050100

Higher than 34% of scored CVEs

8.8HighCVSS 3.1

LowMediumHighCrit.

DescriptionCVE.org

The Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripe plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 30.0.2 via the `RegistryUserRole` parameter. This is due to the plugin's admin menu being registered at the `edit_posts` capability level — granting Contributor-level users access to the plugin's admin pages and a valid `cg_admin` nonce — while the option-saving handler in `change-options-and-sizes.php` performs no `current_user_can()` capability check beyond `check_admin_referer('cg_admin')`, and the `RegistryUserRole` value is processed only through `sanitize_text_field()` and `htmlentities()` without restriction to an allowlist of permitted role names. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with author-level access and above, to overwrite the plugin's stored `RegistryUserRole` option with `administrator`, which the `cg_create_wp_user_from_google_user` function then reads back from the `contest_gal1ery_registry_and_login_options` database table without any allowlist validation and passes directly to `wp_update_user()`, effectively promoting a newly registered Google sign-in account to Administrator.

Affected products1

From the CVE record. A product or version that is not listed is unknown, not unaffected.

contest-gallery · Contest Gallery – Upload & Vote Photos, Media, Sell with PayPal & Stripeup to and including 30.0.2

On the Atlas

Every published CVE is on the CyberSIXT Atlas, grouped by weakness, vendor and month.

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Exploitation: Unlikely (under 1%). EPSS under 1%, or no score yet.
CISA KEV: Not listed
Public check: No public nuclei template
Weakness: Improper Privilege Management · Access Control
Vendor: contest-gallery
Published: June 2026
Band: Unlikely (under 1%), June 2026

CoverageNo articles yet

No CyberSIXT article names CVE-2026-12165 yet, so there is no coverage timeline, action brief or change log for it. Everything on this page comes from the public CVE record, CISA KEV, EPSS and the nuclei template index. Search the archive or see the CVEs in the news.