CVE-2026-105062 in Admin Audit Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 10/05/2026
Missing Authorization vulnerability in Brandtoss WP Admin Audit wp-admin-audit allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects WP Admin Audit: from n/a through 1.2.17.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/05/2026
The identified security flaw within the WP Admin Audit plugin, specifically affecting versions ranging from initial releases up to version 1.2.17, constitutes a critical failure in access control mechanisms known as Missing Authorization. This vulnerability stems from an insufficient verification of user privileges before executing sensitive administrative functions or exposing internal system data. In typical WordPress architectures, certain endpoints and actions are intended exclusively for users with elevated capabilities such as administrators. However, due to the absence of proper checks ensuring that the requesting user possesses these required permissions, the application fails to restrict access appropriately. This misconfiguration allows any authenticated user, regardless of their assigned role or privilege level within the WordPress environment, to interact with protected endpoints and retrieve sensitive information intended for higher-privileged accounts.
From a technical perspective, this flaw aligns directly with CWE-284, which describes Improper Access Control, specifically falling under the sub-category of insufficient authorization checks during resource access. The vulnerability enables an attacker who has obtained valid credentials for even a low-level user account, such as a subscriber or contributor, to bypass intended security boundaries. By manipulating HTTP requests directed at specific plugin endpoints, the attacker can trigger actions that are supposed to be restricted to administrators. This effectively neutralizes the layered defense strategy provided by role-based access control, allowing unauthorized entities to perform administrative tasks or view audit logs and configuration details that should remain confidential.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for any organization relying on WordPress for content management while using WP Admin Audit for tracking user activities and system changes. An attacker exploiting this flaw can gain insights into the internal workings of the site, including potential misconfigurations, active plugins, and administrative actions performed by other users. This information serves as valuable reconnaissance data that facilitates further attacks, such as privilege escalation or targeted exploitation of known vulnerabilities in other installed components. Furthermore, if the audit logs contain sensitive operational details, their exposure compromises the integrity of security monitoring efforts, potentially allowing an attacker to evade detection after compromising the system.
This behavior is also consistent with techniques documented in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the Initial Access and Discovery tactics, particularly those involving exploitation of misconfigured access controls or unauthorized API consumption. The lack of authorization checks represents a fundamental breakdown in security design principles where trust is incorrectly placed in client-side inputs rather than server-side validation of user identity and permissions. Such oversights are common in legacy codebases that may not have been updated to adhere to modern WordPress coding standards regarding capability verification using functions like current_user_can or similar privilege-checking mechanisms before processing requests.
To mitigate this vulnerability, immediate action is required by updating the WP Admin Audit plugin to a version later than 1.2.17 where these authorization checks have presumably been corrected by the developers. Until an update is applied, site administrators should consider restricting access to the WordPress admin area through IP whitelisting or two-factor authentication for all accounts with elevated privileges to reduce the attack surface. Additionally, implementing Web Application Firewalls can help detect and block anomalous requests attempting to exploit missing authorization endpoints. Regular security audits and code reviews focusing on access control logic are essential to prevent similar flaws in custom themes or plugins that may share this architectural weakness.