CVE-2026-13167

/// Technical description

The Everest Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form, Quiz, Survey & Custom Form Builder with AI plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 3.5.2. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with delegated form management access and above, to activate arbitrary already-installed WordPress plugins — including previously deactivated or vulnerable plugins — without holding the core activate_plugins capability. Exploitation requires the target user to hold a delegated Everest Forms capability (manage_everest_forms, everest_forms_create_forms, or everest_forms_view_forms), which the plugin's own roles and permissions tool allows administrators to assign to non-administrator roles such as Author; the nonces required to exploit the AJAX handlers are emitted on EVF admin pages accessible to any such delegated user.

/// Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

/// References