LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes: Privilege escalation or authentication bypass
LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes is affected by privilege escalation or authentication bypass. Exploitation requires an authenticated WordPress account. A successful request can grant permissions or access that the caller should not possess.
- Component
- LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes
- Plugin slug
lifterlms- Affected
- See vendor advisory
- Safe version
- See mitigation notes
- Published
- Nov 13, 2025
This CVE was published Nov 13, 2025 and is one of 16 known issues for this plugin.
Update, patch or deactivate.
Update LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes to a release outside the affected range, or disable and remove it until a fixed version is available.
No confirmed safe version is listed. Consider a vendor-supported patch or temporarily restricting the affected functionality while you assess the risk.
Deactivate only when warranted by your risk profile, or when advised by your hosting provider in the limited circumstances where the vulnerability cannot otherwise be mitigated. If you’re unsure which action is appropriate, contact Fused or your hosting provider for guidance.
Technical description
The LifterLMS – WP LMS for eLearning, Online Courses, & Quizzes plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a user's identity prior to allowing them to modify their own role via the REST API. The permission check in the update_item_permissions_check() function returns true when a user updates their own account without verifying the role changes. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with student-level access and above, to escalate their privileges to administrator by updating their own roles array via a crafted REST API request. Another endpoint intended for instructors also provides an attack vector. Affected version ranges are 3.5.3-3.41.2, 4.0.0-4.21.3, 5.0.0-5.10.0, 6.0.0-6.11.0, 7.0.0-7.8.7, 8.0.0-8.0.7, 9.0.0-9.0.7, 9.1.0.
CVE / CNA vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H