CVE-2026-16276 in Classified Listing Plugin
Summary
by MITRE • 08/03/2026
The Classified Listing WordPress plugin before 5.4.4 does not perform a capability check on an AJAX action that returns aggregated store revenue totals, allowing users with contributor-level access and above to read daily revenue figures normally restricted to administrators and report managers.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/03/2026
The vulnerability in the Classified Listing WordPress plugin affects versions prior to 5.4.4 and represents a critical authorization flaw that undermines the plugin's access control mechanisms. This issue stems from insufficient capability checks within the plugin's AJAX handling system, specifically targeting an action designed to return aggregated store revenue totals. The flaw allows users with contributor-level permissions or higher to access sensitive financial data that should be restricted to administrators and report managers only, creating a significant security risk for e-commerce operations relying on this plugin.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the plugin's failure to validate user capabilities before executing the AJAX endpoint responsible for retrieving revenue statistics. When a contributor or higher-privileged user makes an AJAX request to the affected endpoint, the system processes the request without verifying whether the requesting user possesses the necessary administrative privileges required to access financial reporting data. This oversight creates an unauthorized information disclosure scenario where sensitive business metrics become accessible to users who should not have such visibility into the platform's revenue streams.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses substantial risks to businesses utilizing the Classified Listing plugin for online marketplace operations. The exposure of daily revenue figures provides potential attackers with valuable intelligence about business performance patterns, peak transaction times, and overall financial health of the platform. This information could be leveraged for competitive analysis, social engineering attacks, or as part of broader reconnaissance efforts targeting the organization's infrastructure. The impact extends beyond simple data disclosure since revenue information often correlates with other sensitive operational metrics that could further compromise business security.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses insufficient authorization checks in software systems, and demonstrates how inadequate access control implementations can lead to privilege escalation scenarios. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this issue maps to T1068, which involves the use of unauthorized privileges for information gathering activities, and T1566, covering social engineering tactics that exploit information disclosure vulnerabilities. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including updating to plugin version 5.4.4 or later, where proper capability checks have been implemented to restrict access to revenue reporting functionality based on appropriate user roles and permissions.
Security best practices dictate that all AJAX endpoints within WordPress plugins must perform comprehensive capability validation before executing sensitive operations. The fix implemented in version 5.4.4 should include robust user role verification using WordPress's built-in capability checking functions such as current_user_can() to ensure only authorized personnel can access financial reporting data. Additionally, organizations should conduct regular security audits of their WordPress plugin ecosystem to identify similar authorization gaps that could potentially be exploited by malicious actors seeking unauthorized access to sensitive operational information.