BAN Users <= 1.5.3 — Missing Authorization to Authenticated (Subscriber+) Settings Update & Privilege Escalation

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under BAN Users.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.

What to do

1. No known patch available. Please review the vulnerability's details in depth and employ mitigations based on your organization's risk tolerance. It may be best to uninstall the affected software and find a replacement.
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch BAN Users to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to István Márton.

The BAN Users plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in versions up to, and including, 1.5.3 due to a missing capability check on the 'w3dev_save_ban_user_settings_callback' function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with minimal permissions such as a subscriber, to modify the plugin settings to access the ban and unban functionality and set the role of the unbanned user.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

No public proof-of-concept or detection template is known for this vulnerability.

Advisories & patches

• Advisorywordfence.com

Timeline

1. Sep 12, 2023

   CVE published

   Severity high, CVSS 8.8

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated