Executive brief
The Five Star Restaurant Reservations WordPress plugin allows low-privilege users to reset critical notification settings without proper authorization. A "Booking Manager" user—who normally cannot access the plugin's settings—can delete all configured booking notification rules, disabling automated customer notifications and disrupting restaurant operations.
Technical details
The plugin fails to enforce a capability check on the rtb_reset_notifications AJAX action, allowing authenticated users with the "Booking Manager" role to invoke it. Although this role lacks manage_options permissions needed to access the settings UI, the AJAX endpoint validates only the nonce (CSRF token), not user authorization. An attacker with Booking Manager credentials can obtain the nonce from any page they can reach (e.g., the bookings admin page) and submit a POST request to reset all notification rules. This privilege escalation compromises a critical administrative function that controls automated customer communications. The vulnerability was patched in version 2.7.23.
Affected products
- Five Star Restaurant Reservations Five Star Restaurant Reservations before 2.7.23
Timeline
- 2026-07-20: disclosed
- 2026-07-23: patched