Knit Pay <= 9.6.1.0 — Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via Gravity Forms Role Field

Am I affected?

• Check your version: in wp-admin go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and read the version under Knit Pay – Cashfree, Instamojo, Razorpay, PayPal and more.
• No admin access? Run a passive check of your site. It reads public files only.

What to do

1. Update to version 9.6.2.0, or a newer patched version
2. Rotate administrator passwords and application secrets if the site ran a vulnerable version while publicly reachable.
3. Watch Knit Pay – Cashfree, Instamojo, Razorpay, PayPal and more to get an email when the next vulnerability is published.

Advisory

Source description from Wordfence Intelligence, credited to moonge.

The Knit Pay – Cashfree, Instamojo, Razorpay, PayPal and more plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 9.6.1.0. This is due to the `maybe_update_user_role()` function reading the target role directly from an attacker-controlled Gravity Forms entry field — configured via the feed's `user_role_field_id` — and passing it to `WP_User::set_role()` without validating the supplied value against an allowlist of permitted roles. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to elevate their privileges to administrator by tampering with the hidden role field value at form submission time. Exploitation is further enabled by the fact that $0 orders are synchronously marked as SUCCESS during form submission without requiring a real payment, and when no GF User Registration user can be resolved, the role assignment target falls back to `$lead['created_by']` — the currently authenticated submitter's own user ID — making any authenticated form submitter an eligible exploitation target.

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. Sep 24, 2026

   CVE published

   Severity high, CVSS 8.8

2. Nov 13, 2026

   Record last updated