Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme <= 6.7.16 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via AJAX
| CVE | CVE-2026-14805 |
|---|---|
| CVSS | 8.8 (High) |
| Publicly Published | September 14, 2026 |
| Last Updated | September 15, 2026 |
| Researcher |
lhking
|
Description
The Consulting theme for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in versions up to, and including, 6.7.16. This is due to a combination of two flaws: (1) the masterstudy_ms_stm_set_discard_transient AJAX endpoint in admin/admin-notices/classes/STMHandler.php accepts an arbitrary transient key without capability checks or nonce validation, and (2) the developer access login mechanism in admin/classes/stm-theme-support.php authenticates users based on a transient value without proper cryptographic validation when in legacy string mode. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with subscriber-level access and above, to set the stm_developer_access_token transient to a known value (1), then authenticate as any existing user including administrators by visiting a specially crafted URL, thereby achieving full privilege escalation to administrator.
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Vulnerability Details for Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme
| Software Type | Theme |
|---|---|
| Software Slug | consulting |
| Patched? | Yes |
| Remediation | Update to version 6.7.17, or a newer patched version |
| Affected Version |
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| Patched Version |
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