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Critical · 9.8 Scanner template Public exploit CVE-2026-19598 EUVD-2026-59778GHSA-hmmc-48gm-3645

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

Published Aug 15, 2026 · Updated Aug 17, 2026 · Assigned by Wordfence

Description

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
sc0ttkclark Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields 2.8 – ≤ 2.8.23.3, 2.9 – ≤ 2.9.19.3, 3.0 – ≤ 3.0.10.3, 3.1 – ≤ 3.1.4.1, 3.2 – ≤ 3.2.8.2, 3.3 – ≤ 3.3.9 —

Public exploits

Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.

Third-party code, not reviewed by us. Public PoCs are sometimes fake or contain malware. Read the code first and run it only in an isolated lab, against systems you are authorised to test.

GitHub 4 repositories

Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.

Automated scanner template

A ready-made Nuclei template detects this vulnerability automatically. Vulnerabilities with public scanner templates are typically probed across the internet soon after the template appears — exposed systems should be patched first.

Source: projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates (MIT) — updated daily. Only links are listed.

References