CVE-2026-19598 PUBLISHED

Pods <= 3.3.9 - Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation via Authorization Bypass to Admin Methods via 'pods_admin' AJAX Router

Assigner: Wordfence
Reserved: 12.08.2026 Published: 15.08.2026 Updated: 15.08.2026

The Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation via Authorization Bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.3.9. The vulnerability exists because the pods_admin AJAX router funnels every access check — including the method allowlist, nonce verification, login enforcement, and capability gate — through pods_error(), which under the JSON meta-box-loader compatibility path only writes failures to the PHP error log and returns false instead of terminating the request, rendering all guards ineffective. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to escalate their privileges to Administrator or overwrite the password of any user account, including the site owner's, enabling complete site takeover, or perform another administrator action.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS Score: 9.8

Product Status

Vendor sc0ttkclark
Product Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 2.8 to 2.8.23.3 (incl.)
  • affected from 2.9 to 2.9.19.3 (incl.)
  • affected from 3.0 to 3.0.10.3 (incl.)
  • affected from 3.1 to 3.1.4.1 (incl.)
  • affected from 3.2 to 3.2.8.2 (incl.)
  • affected from 3.3 to 3.3.9 (incl.)

Credits

  • Nhien Pham (nhienit) finder
  • thevietronin finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization CWE