CVE-2026-14805 Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme <= 6.7.16 - Authenticated (Subscriber+) Privilege Escalation via AJAX
Authenticated subscribers can escalate privileges to administrator by manipulating transient values via an insecure AJAX endpoint and login mechanism.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-14805?
CVE-2026-14805 is a high-severity vulnerability in StylemixThemes Consulting - Business, Finance WordPress Theme, published on 15 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official 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.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-14805?
How do I fix CVE-2026-14805?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-14805 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-14805 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-14805 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-qhgg-3j23-p87j.