Welcome Software Publishing <= 0.0.31 — Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary Options Update to Privilege Escalation via 'nc.setOption' XML-RPC Method

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Welcome Software Publishing.
• 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 Welcome Software Publishing to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to Nabil Irawan.

The Welcome Software Publishing plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Arbitrary Options Update in all versions up to and including 0.0.31. This is due to a missing capability check in the nc_setOption() function, which is exposed via the nc.setOption XML-RPC method. The function authenticates the user via $wp_xmlrpc_server->login() (verifying credentials are valid) but does not perform any authorization check such as current_user_can('manage_options'). This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to update arbitrary WordPress options via XML-RPC requests. This can be leveraged to change the default_role option to 'administrator' and then register a new administrator account, achieving full privilege escalation and site takeover.

Exploits & references

Proof-of-concept & detection

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

Advisories & patches

• Advisorywordfence.com

Related CVEs

Timeline

1. Jun 23, 2026

   CVE published

   Severity high, CVSS 8.8

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated