WordPress security changelog
HIGH CVE-2026-4297 Deferred

Welcome Software Publishing: Privilege escalation or authentication bypass

Welcome Software Publishing is affected by privilege escalation or authentication bypass. Exploitation requires at least subscriber-level access. A successful request can grant permissions or access that the caller should not possess. The published affected range is <= 0.0.31.

CVE / CNA score 8.8 CVSS 3.1 · security@wordfence.com
NVD score Pending NVD has not published its own CVSS assessment.
Component
Welcome Software Publishing
Plugin slug
newscred-publishing
Affected
<= 0.0.31
Safe version
> 0.0.31
Published
Jun 24, 2026
Weakness
CWE-862 — Missing Authorization

This CVE was published Jun 24, 2026 and is one of 1 known issue for this plugin.

What to do

Update, patch or deactivate.

Update Welcome Software Publishing to a release after 0.0.31, or disable and remove it until a fixed version is available.

A safe version is available, so updating to that version or later is the preferred remediation. If an immediate update is not practical, consider a targeted application patch or temporarily restricting the affected functionality.

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.

Source record

Technical description

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.

CVE / CNA vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Primary and upstream sources