CVE-2025-13538 is a critical security vulnerability identified in the FindAll Listing plugin for WordPress, developed by Elated Themes. The vulnerability stems from improper privilege management (CWE-269) in the 'findall_listing_user_registration_additional_params' function, which fails to validate or restrict the user roles that can be assigned during the registration process. Specifically, this flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to specify the 'administrator' role when registering a new user account, effectively granting themselves full administrative privileges on the affected WordPress site. This privilege escalation is particularly dangerous because it requires no authentication or user interaction, and the attack surface is exposed to any unauthenticated user. However, exploitation is contingent upon the FindAll Membership plugin being active, as it manages the user registration functionality. The vulnerability affects all versions of the FindAll Listing plugin up to and including version 1.0.5. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 9.8 (critical), reflecting the ease of exploitation (network vector, low complexity), no privileges required, no user interaction, and a high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Although no exploits have been reported in the wild yet, the vulnerability poses a severe risk to WordPress sites using these plugins, potentially allowing attackers to fully compromise the site, manipulate content, steal sensitive data, or disrupt services. The lack of available patches at the time of disclosure increases the urgency for mitigation and monitoring.

For European organizations, this vulnerability represents a significant threat to the security of WordPress-based websites, which are widely used across Europe for business, e-commerce, and public services. Successful exploitation would allow attackers to gain full administrative control, enabling them to alter website content, inject malicious code, steal sensitive user data, or disrupt website availability. This can lead to reputational damage, regulatory non-compliance (e.g., GDPR violations due to data breaches), financial losses, and operational disruptions. Organizations relying on the FindAll Listing and FindAll Membership plugins, particularly those with public-facing registration features, are at heightened risk. The vulnerability's ease of exploitation and critical severity mean that even less sophisticated attackers could compromise sites, increasing the likelihood of widespread abuse. The impact extends beyond individual sites to potentially affect customers and partners interacting with compromised platforms. Additionally, given the critical nature of the vulnerability, attackers could use compromised sites as footholds for further attacks within organizational networks.

1. Immediately disable user registration functionality on affected WordPress sites using the FindAll Listing and FindAll Membership plugins until a security patch is released. 2. Remove or deactivate the FindAll Listing and FindAll Membership plugins if user registration is not essential. 3. Monitor newly created user accounts closely, especially those assigned administrative roles, and audit user role assignments regularly. 4. Implement web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block suspicious registration attempts that specify elevated roles. 5. Restrict access to the WordPress admin and registration endpoints via IP whitelisting or other network controls where feasible. 6. Keep WordPress core, themes, and plugins updated to the latest versions once patches addressing this vulnerability are available. 7. Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focused on privilege escalation and user management controls. 8. Educate site administrators about the risks of privilege escalation vulnerabilities and the importance of monitoring user roles and registrations. 9. Consider implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrative accounts to reduce the impact of compromised credentials. 10. Prepare incident response plans to quickly react to potential exploitation attempts.